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THE HUMANITY OF 
THE CHRIST 

And Other Essays 



BY 



GERRIT HUYSER 

ii 




BOSTON 

RICHARD G. BADGER 

THE GORHAM PRESS 



Copyright, 19 19, by Gekrit Huyser 



All Rights Reserved 






Made in the United States of America 



The Gorham Press, Boston, U. S. A. 

"W 25 / 9/9 
©CI.A529830 



«<4 








JENNIE ABERNETHY 

Born in the City of Detroit, 

of Scotch-Irish parents, 

(Robert Abernethy and Anna Farr) 

November 26, 1840; 

Married to the Rev. Gerrit Huyser, 

December 7, 1871 ; 

Fell sweetly asleep in Jesus 

on the afternoon of Wednesday, 

May 1, 1918. 



The original photographs were 

laboring with the Second 

Pella, 




GERRIT HUYSER 

Born in the Netherlands, 

at Ridderkerk, 

Province of South Holland, 

February 28, 1838; 

Came with his parents to Detroit, 

May 31, 1851; 

Entered upon the public work of the 

Ministry, June 7, 1868; 

Was duly licensed to preach the 

Gospel in April, and ordained 

in June, 1869. 



taken in 1883, when we were 

Reformed Church of 

Iowa. 



DEDICATION 

WHEN the publisher's kindly insistence finally induced 
me to try and prepare a volume for publication, I 
assured my dearly beloved life-companion that I would 
dedicate it to her. 

Now that she has gone to her eternal home, I can only 
dedicate it to the blessed memory of one who, wherever 
in these Northwestern States, her husband was called to 
labor, was not only always his faithful and heroic fellow- 
worker; but who did everything in her power to further 
his usefulness, and who was ever the friend and helper of 
the needy and the distressed. 

In her going hence she illustrated in a wonderful way 
that beautiful Oriental poem, translated by Sir William 
Jones from the Sanscrit of Calidasa: 

"On parents' knees, a naked, new-born child, 
Weeping thou satst when all around thee smiled: 
So live, that, sinking in thy last long sleep, 
Thou then mayst smile while all around thee weep." 

Deprived of the power of speech during the last few 
weeks, because of a slight paralytic stroke, she literally 
smiled her life away; smiling at those who waited on her, 
smiling at the friends who came to see her, and smiling 
at her husband as he tried, as best he might, to repeat 
to her the precious promises of Holy Writ, and some of 
those blessed hymns, that she had so long loved to sing; 
and, lo, ere we knew, her gentle spirit had been wafted 
away to that better country, where God Himself shall 
wipe away every tear! 

My darling wife, fare thee well! 

Thou art gone from me, but not for ever. We shall 
meet again, in the sweet by and by, on the evergreen 
shore, where parting shall be no more! 



PREFACE 

TN regard to the discourses contained in this vol- 
ume the author simply wishes to say that it has 
been his life-long endeavor to bear in mind that 
Heaven's ambassador should ever and always hide 
himself behind the cross, and that the salvation 
of souls is the one supreme object of preaching. 
And he makes humble and grateful acknowledg- 
ment to the God of all grace, that the Holy Spirit, 
whenever the people have had a mind to the work, 
has most graciously, and at times in a wonderful 
way, blessed the delivery of these and like sermons 
to the comforting and upbuilding of believers, and 
to the conversion of many that were without, both 
old and young. 

As to the many Scriptural quotations, it is proper 
to state that, unless otherwise noted, these are in- 
variably taken from the American Standard Edition 
of the Revised English Bible. 

The author takes for granted that the reader 
has a right to know what version a writer follows. 
It seems exceedingly strange that reputable writers 
sometimes leave their readers entirely in the dark 

5 



6 Preface 

as to all that; quoting this or that translation, or 
even giving their own version, without definite in- 
formation in every case. But it seems to us a 
thing far more unaccountable, that so many excel- 
lent scholars, both in their preaching and in writ- 
ing for the press, should, even at this late day, still 
cling with such a strange tenacity to this miscalled 
Authorized Version; which, notwithstanding its be- 
ing a well-nigh undefiled well of noble English, is, 
in many ways, altogether out of date. True it is 
that our R. V. is not absolutely perfect, which 
simply means, as says The Westminster Confession 
of Faith, that the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures, 
"being immediately inspired of God, and by His 
singular care and providence kept pure in all ages, 
are therefore authentic, so as, in all controversies 
of religion, the Church is finally to appeal unto 
them." Our American Revised Version is, how- 
ever, far and away the most accurate and best trans- 
lation in the possession of the English-speaking 
world, and it does seem a great pity that the Prot- 
estant Church has not long since unanimously 
adopted it for all ordinary purposes. 

To mention only a few out of a thousand and 
one instances, and these are by no means always 
among the most vital, surely no good reason can be 
given why the common people should not be al- 



Preface ' 7 

lowed to read, e. g., "In the beginning God cre- 
ated," not, the heaven, but "the heavens and the 
earth" (Gen. I:i). In Ex. III:i5, "Jehovah, the 
God of your fathers." In Ex. VI :2 "I am Je- 
hovah," and so elsewhere. In Ps. VIII "O Jeho- 
vah, our Lord." And in Ps. CX:i, 

"Jehovah saith unto my Lord, Sit Thou at My 
right hand, 
Until I make Thine enemies Thy footstool." 

In Prov. IV: 1 8, 

"But the path of the righteous is as the dawning 

light, 
That shineth more and more unto the perfect 

day." 

Nor is there any valid excuse for still telling us, 
that our Lord bade us not to be careful about the 
morrow, when what He did say was that .we are 
not to be "anxious for the morrow (Matt. VI: 
34). So should the apostle be allowed to exhort us, 
"Casting all your anxiety upon Him, because He 
careth for you" (I. Pet. V:7). And to think of 
continuing any longer to compel the evangelist to 
make the utterly absurd statement, that Mary of 
Bethany, when her sister Martha had gone out to 
meet their anxiously looked-for Teacher, sat still, 



8 Preface 

perfectly composed in body and mind, when what 
he did say was simply this, "Mary still sat in the 
house" (John XI:2o). There is, however, a far 
more serious matter than any of these, which affects 
the recognition of the personality of the Third 
Person of the adorable Godhead. Even the learned 
revisers have failed to fully rectify our noble Eng- 
lish Bible in this respect, and yet we owe them 
undying thanks, especially the British revisers, to 
whom the change in this case is primarily due, for 
having rid two memorable passages in the epistle 
to the Romans of that utterly obnoxious term, 
which the writer for one never allowed himself to 
read in public, before ever there was a revision of 
any sort, without solemn protest, viz., "itself," and 
where we are now privileged to read, "The Spirit 
Himself beareth witness with our spirit, that we 
are children of God; . . . And in like manner the 
Spirit also helpeth our infirmity: for we know not 
how to pray as we ought; but the Spirit Himself 
maketh intercession for us with groanings which 
cannot be uttered" (Ch. VIII :i 6, 26). 

The author can hardly expect, in spite of the 
utmost care in revising these discourses for the 
press, that he should entirely have escaped the com- 
mon lot of man in making blunders; especially 
when he had to do this work with an aching heart: 



Preface 9 

but he humbly trusts that nothing of that will 
have obscured the following pages; for it ill be- 
comes one who has, for, lo, these many years, been 
privileged to point the sorrowing and afflicted to 
an elder Brother Who careth for us, to obtrude his 
own sorrows upon his fellow-men, all of whom 
have enough of their own to struggle under; and so 
he has endeavored to bear in mind for himself, as 
well as for his sorrow-laden brethren and sisters 
in the Lord, that 

"Like as a father pitieth his children, 
So Jehovah pitieth them that fear Him. 
For He knoweth our frame; 
He remembereth that we are dust." 

(Ps. CIII:i 3 -i4). 

"For He doth not afflict willingly," in the He- 
brew, "From His heart," "nor grieve the children 
of men" (The Lamentations of Jeremiah, Ch. Ill: 
33). 

That He Who has so often blessed the spoken 
word may, of His infinite goodness, use these pages 
to the praise of His glory, is the sincere prayer of 
one who, by His amazing mercy and favor, is now 
eighty years young, with eyes undimmed and nat- 
ural force unabated. 

Detroit, 

December, 191 8. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Preface 5 

The Humanity of the Christ 15 

How God Reconciled the World unto Himself . . 40 

The Need of Pressing Onward in the Divine Life 61 

Satan's Great Masterpiece 81 

Christian Lights in the World, and How They Are 

to Hold Forth the Word of Life 101 

Was There Only One Ascension? 120 

The Efficacy and Profitableness of Prayer . . 156 

Christ's Invitation to the Burdened and Weary . 179 

The Approaching Day 198 

The Restoration and Redemption of Israel . . 216 

A Twofold Cause of Error 243 

The Fall of Man 261 



THE HUMANITY OF THE CHRIST 



THE HUMANITY OF 
THE CHRIST 

THE HUMANITY OF THE CHRIST 

John XI: 35. "Jesus wept." 

AMID the eminent characters, whose names are 
enrolled upon the page of history; among 
the many illustrious personages, who have indel- 
ibly enstamped the impress of their lives upon hu- 
man destiny, there stands forth in bold relief, and 
in the solitary grandeur of a perfect manhood, 
matchless and inimitable in all the lineaments of 
His majestic glory, the Man Christ Jesus! 

Oh! how the world's noblest characters dwin- 
dle into utter insignificance, and how is their glory 
obscured, when brought to the test of His spotless 
life! How trivial and how inane do the moral 
precepts of every ancient and modern philosopher 
prove themselves, when tried by the standard of 
His sublime teachings! 

In the life of Jesus of Nazareth there is brought 



1 6 The Humanity of the Christ 

to view both the strength and the gentleness, the 
majesty and the beauty of the perfect man. 

What force of decision, what strength of purpose 
is revealed in that matchless character which the 
four evangelists have portrayed ! To every tempta- 
tion of Satan, to every blandishment of His human 
enemies, to every mistaken entreaty of His friends; 
in a word, to every thing that might in any wise 
have diverted Him from His chosen purpose, He 
unhesitatingly turned a deaf ear. 

His indignant, piercing look; His language of 
scathing rebuke, and full of awful denunciation: 
how they struck terror into the hearts of the 
wicked! Where can be found more clearly than in 
the words of Christ, a true and lifelike delinea- 
tion of the folly and the guilt of hypocrisy? How 
marked, how radical the distinction which is drawn 
between a mere outward conformity to ceremonial 
law, and a cordial obedience to all God's require- 
ments, in these words of Christ, "Now ye the 
Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and of the 
platter: but your inward part is full of extortion 
and wickedness. Ye foolish ones, did not He that 
made the outside make the inside also? But woe 
unto you Pharisees! for ye tithe mint, and rue, and 
every herb, and pass over justice and the love of 
God: but these ought ye to have done, and not to 



The Humanity of the Christ 17 

leave the other undone" (Luke XI 139-40, 42). 
Where was human pride ever more pointedly re- 
buked? and when were self-righteous accusers of 
their fellow-men more signally forced to condemn 
themselves, than when, as He sat in His Father's 
house, the Savior uttered that significant and heart- 
searching command, "He that is without sin among 
you, let him first cast a stone at her" (John VIII: 

7)? 

And yet the Man Christ Jesus, although thus 
severe in His denunciation of a mock piety; and 
though He indignantly unmasked the hypocrisy of 
those who esteemed themselves more righteous than 
others, while, in the sight of God, they were just 
as bad, or even much worse: yet — and herein ap- 
pear the beauty and charming symmetry of His 
character — yet He was as quick to discern the least 
indication of true penitence, and was ever ready 
to throw the mantle of His abounding charity over 
the misdeeds of such as honestly desired to turn 
from their wicked ways. And so we find that no 
sooner had the self-righteous scribes and Pharisees, 
who had brought to Him a woman taken in adul- 
tery, one by one sneaked away from His presence, 
having been convicted of their own inward deprav- 
ity, but we hear Jesus utter those gracious words, so 
full of sympathy as well as of warning for the fu- 



1 8 The Humanity of the Christ 

ture, "Neither do I condemn thee: go thy way; 
from henceforth sin no more" (v. n). 

The Savior's heart overflowed with sympathy for 
human suffering and distress in every form. And 
the genuineness and strength of His fellow-feeling 
were clearly shown by this fact, so fully attested 
by the record of His life from day to day, viz., that 
He was always ready to raise up the fallen, to heal 
the diseased, whether of body or of mind, to speak 
the word of comfort to the sorrowing and the be- 
reaved, and of encouragement to the faint-hearted 
and the weary. 

As it is in our Lord's intercourse with the wicked 
spiritual rulers of the Jews, the scribes and Phari- 
sees, that we behold in the strongest light the stern 
and ever unyielding principles that controlled His 
every act; as also His holy detestation of practical 
ungodliness, however masked or overlaid with pious 
pretensions: so it is in His intercourse with His 
three intimate friends in Bethany — in whose peace- 
ful home He so often found repose — that we may 
see some of the most beautiful illustrations of all 
that is lovely and attractive in His untarnished hu- 
manity. 

It is under the hospitable roof of Lazarus, 
of Martha and Mary; in the bosom of this con- 
genial household, where neither of those twin off- 



The Humanity of the Christ 19 

spring of the pit, jealousy or envy, was on the alert 
to whisper its foul and fiendish suspicions: but 
where there was that undefinable something which 
often draws pure souls, and that well-nigh invol- 
untarily, into spontaneous sympathy with each 
other; it is there where the social nature of the 
Son of Man finds some of its freest, its most de- 
lightful occasions for self-manifestation. 

And in the narrative contained in the nth chap- 
ter of the Gospel according to John, in which oc- 
cur the words of the text, how many and how 
varied are the glimpses given, how charming the 
delineations which the pen of the beloved disciple 
has portrayed, of the human character of our blessed 
Lord. 

At this time we view Him under circumstances 
of strange and peculiar interest. On the other side 
of the river Jordan He has received that brief and 
touching message, so full of loving and confiding 
expectation, "Lord, behold, he whom Thou lovest is 
sick" (v. 3). Seemingly unmoved He simply ut- 
ters the mysterious declaration, "This sickness is 
not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the 
Son of God may be glorified thereby" (v. 4). 

Yet the sick man dies, and now, after the body 
of His friend Lazarus has already lain in the tomb 
for four days, the Savior, accompanied by His 



20 The Humanity of the Christ 

twelve disciples, may once more be seen approach- 
ing Bethany. 

No sooner does Martha hear that Jesus is com- 
ing but she runs out to meet Him, and pours into 
His compassionate ear her plaintive, and almost re- 
proachful, lamentation, "Lord, if Thou hadst been 
here, my brother had not died!" (v. 21). 

After a brief and wonderful interview, in which 
He assures her that He Himself is "the resurrec- 
tion and the life" (v. 25), she hastens back to the 
house, and whispers into her sister's ear that hope- 
inspiring message, "The Teacher is here, and call- 
eth thee" (v. 28). And Mary rises up hastily to 
meet the ever welcome Guest, and, falling down at 
Jesus' feet, she too exclaims, "Lord, if Thou hadst 
been here, my brother had not died!" 

"When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and 
the Jews also weeping who came with her, He 
groaned in the Spirit, and was troubled, and said, 
Where have ye laid him? They say unto Him, 
Lord, come and see" (v's 33-34). And as they 
were leading Him to the tomb of His friend Laz- 
arus "Jesus wept." 

O what a scene was that! And how clearly 
does this incident in the earthly life of the Re- 
deemer attest the reality of His human nature! 
What else could show us more conclusively, that the 



The Humanity of the Christ 21 

Christ did not appear on earth, in what some have 
termed "an unreal vail of sense"? What better 
proof is needed that He did assuredly partake of 
flesh and blood? 

To the patriarch Abraham, and to other of the 
saints during former dispensations, the Son of God 
Himself and His celestial messengers had frequently 
appeared in the likeness of our frail humanity. They 
gave utterance to the commands of Heaven, reveal- 
ing the will of Deity to mortal man, and then 
quickly sped themselves back to their ethereal man- 
sions. But Jesus of Nazareth had already spent 
thirty years upon this earth, growing up from earli- 
est infancy to manhood's prime, before entering 
upon His public ministry. And now as that mar- 
velous ministry of love and compassion is drawing 
to a close, we see Him going to the tomb of His 
friend Lazarus, His human soul moved at the sight 
of the weeping sisters, and of their weeping friends, 
and, lo, with their heart-breaking sobs are mingled 
the tears of the Man Christ Jesus! 

Ah! this is not at all like the angelic appearances 
of any age. Nor is He Who goes weeping to 
yonder tomb in Bethany of Judea, simply the Son 
of God as once He stood with gracious condescen- 
sion, yet with majestic mien, as "The Judge of all 
the earth" (Gen. XVIII 125), listening to Abra- 



22 The Humanity of the Christ 

ham's plea for the guilty cities of the plain, or as 
He wrestled all night with Jacob by the brook 
Jabboc. No, this indeed is the Son of God, yet 
this is also the Son of Man. 

When we behold the Savior mingling His tears 
with those of the sorrowing company which is 
slowly wending its way to the tomb of Lazarus, we 
begin to realize somewhat the preciousness of that 
truth, which is set forth by the apostle Paul, when 
he declares concerning the only begotten Son of 
God, "For verily not to angels doth He give help, 
but He giveth help to the seed of Abraham" (Heb. 
II:i6). Yes, Christ became truly man, and in 
Him we perceive not only the sterner qualities of 
our nature, but likewise all the more gentle and 
winning graces of a sinless and perfect human char- 
acter. 

"Jesus wept." The absolute God, the all-creat- 
ing, yet uncreated, Spirit, the Great Cause un- 
caused, the incomprehensible and infinite One, eter- 
nal and immutable in all the wonderful attributes 
of His matchless being: the human mind staggers 
at the very thought of God, and shrinks back with 
amaze and awe from His unseen presence. Yet, 
blessed be God! there is One Who, though He is 
"the effulgence of His glory, and the very image 



The Humanity of the Christ 23 

of His substance, . . . upholding all things by the 
word of His power" (Heb. 1:3), Y et became for a 
while "a little lower than the angels" (Ch. 11:7) ; 
and Who, whereas man had "flesh and blood, . . . 
also Himself in like manner partook of the same" 
(v. 14) ; nay, "emptied Himself, taking the form 
of a servant, being made in the likeness of man" 
(Phil. 11:7); an d having thus veiled the dazzling 
glory of Deity under gentlest aspect of human 
form, He "went about doing good" (Acts X:38), 
everywhere administering the abundant consolations 
of His grace, healing the sick, giving hearing to 
the deaf, sight to the blind, raising the dead to life 
again, binding up every broken heart, and even 
mingling His tears with those of the sorrowing and 
the bereaved. 

The perfect knowledge of God we cannot attain 
unto, it is too high for our weak perceptions: but 
the Son of God arrayed in human flesh and blood, 
with His human heart palpitating to every human 
woe, O here is something tangible! something that 
our weak senses can grasp! Yes, in Jesus Christ 
God has, in amazing condescension and love, let 
Himself down as it were to the feebleness of our 
comprehension! He is no longer a God afar off, 
but in the person of the Son He has come very close 



24 The Humanity of the Christ 

to us, in having joined our frail human nature into 
eternal union with the Divine essence. 

An eternal union! Yes, and in that union is in- 
cluded, not simply the soul, or spirit, but the whole 
man. When the Savior expired on Calvary His 
human spirit also descended to the abode of the 
dead, and His body was laid in the new hewn 
tomb of Joseph of Arimathaea; nevertheless the 
Holy One saw no corruption, but on the morning 
of the third day He broke asunder the bars of 
death; during the space of forty days He again and 
again showed Himself to His disciples in His 
thenceforth incorruptible and immortal human 
body; and then, as the heavens received Him out 
of their sight, He, the God-Man, ascended up to 
glory, far above all dominion, and power, and 
every name that is named; and in that same human 
body He shall yet again be seen, standing "upon the 
mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the 
east" (Zech. XIV 14), and, possessed of His glori- 
fied human nature, He shall reign world without 
end, King of kings and Lord of lords. 

In view of all this we may well be astounded 
at the honor which God has put upon the children 
of men, in having thus gloriously exalted our na- 
ture into everlasting union with the Divine. And 
so we may say with an old English writer, 



The Humanity of the Christ 25 

"Twas much, that man was made like God before; 
But, that God should be made like man, much 



There has, alas! grown up in the Christian 
Church a strange, nay, even a contemptuous dis- 
esteem of the body. In the minds of multitudes of 
intelligent Christian people, the idea of the exist- 
ence of a spirit in a physical organism seems to be 
inseparably associated with the idea of sin and con- 
sequent misery. And hence they suppose, when 
once they have got rid of this cumbrous clay, that 
then they will at once enter upon the fulness and 
perfection of their bliss and glory. 

Let us now briefly consider how little ground 
there is, either in Scripture or in the nature of 
things, for such a conclusion. 

How was it in the case of our first parents? Did 
not Jehovah God form the body of Adam first, 
and afterwards create the living soul to inhabit 
that tenement of clay? And were not Adam and 
Eve both spotless as they came forth from the plas- 
tic hand of Deity? Had not God made them in 
such a way, that they were fitted to exercise all 
the powers of their wonderfully composite being, 
physical as well as intellectual and spiritual, in per- 

^ohn Donne, D.D. 



26 The Humanity of the Christ 

feet conformity to His will? Because God had 
enclosed their ethereal spirits in bodies of an 
earthly mold, had He thereby made it impossible 
for them to live lives of holy obedience? 

It is a matter of historic proof that this idea of 
the inseparable connection between matter and sin, 
like many an other delusion, found its way into the 
theology of the Christian Church, as one of the 
results of attempts, which but too often proved 
successful, to mix in the vain and puerile philoso- 
phies of heathenism with the eternal verities of the 
Word of God. And when Christian theologians 
allowed themselves to indulge in the dreamy specu- 
lations of Oriental and Greek philosophy, about the 
eternal conflict between the principles of light and 
darkness, it is not strange that they divested the ac- 
count of the trial and fall of our first parents of 
all its grand and terrible significance, and turned it 
into a meaningless, if not contemptible, fable! 

The earthly life of the Man Christ Jesus, how- 
ever, ought for ever to have kept His people from 
supposing that life in the body and sin are neces- 
sarily associated with each other. That life of 
thirty-three years of sinless devotion to the will 
of the Father, is in itself the best possible evi- 
dence that the primary cause of the fall of man, 
and of the consequent degradation and misery of 



The Humanity of the Christ 27 

our race, is not to be found in the fact that man is 
a physical and animal, as well as a spiritual, being. 

But not this only. The forty days that followed 
upon the Savior's resurrection, during which time 
He gave His followers so many infallible proofs, 
that He was indeed that very God-Man Who, in 
the days of His humiliation, had so abundantly 
demonstrated His thoroughly human sympathy, as 
well as His divine power to succor them in the 
hour of need; His ascension to glory, coupled with 
the assurance of the angelic messengers, "This 
Jesus, Who was received up from you into heaven, 
shall so come in like manner as ye beheld Him 
going into heaven" (Acts I:n) : these things ought 
likewise to have banished forever the supposition, 
that the reunion of soul and body in the resurrec- 
tion state will be at all incompatible with the high- 
est possible degree of felicity which, through the 
unending cycles of the eternal ages, the finite mind 
will be able to attain unto! 

It is indeed true that ever since the fall the chil- 
dren of God have groaned in this sin-defiled taber- 
nacle, and that many have longed with the apostle 
Paul "to depart and be with Christ" (Phil. 1:23). 
Yet this apostle assures us, that that which he most 
ardently longed for was fellowship with Christ in 
suffering, and in "the power of His resurrection" 



28 The Humanity of the Christ 

(Ch. III:io). And when "Paul the aged" wrote 
his last epistle to his son Timothy, and declared 
that the time of his departure was at hand, what 
were his expectations as to the immediate future? 
Did he expect to receive the crown of victory the 
very moment after he had been delivered from 
the cross of conflict and of suffering? However 
much it may accord with prevalent modern ideas 
about the heavenly state to respond affirmatively 
to the last question, nevertheless, bearing in mind his 
other inspired teachings, we hesitate not to affirm 
most emphatically, No! he expected nothing of the 
sort. 

Why just look for a moment at the language of 
the apostle, as he sees the time approaching when 
he too will have to seal his testimony with his 
blood. And what does he say? "For I am already 
being offered, and the time of my departure is come. 
I have fought the good fight, I have finished the 
course." The race was won! "I have kept the 
faith" (II. Tim. IV 16-7). And what now? Does 
he express his joyous assurance that the crown of 
righteousness is awaiting the deliverance of his 
spirit from the trammels of the flesh, and his exit 
from this earth? Not at all. That that crown 
will one day be his he now knows beyond the per- 
adventure of a doubt, for he has faithfully per- 



The Humanity of the Christ 29 

formed the task which his Master had put upon 
him. 

But when does he expect that the Lord Jesus 
Christ, the righteous Judge, will give him this sig- 
nal and most glorious proof of His approbation? 
"Henceforth there is laid up for me," kept in store, 
"the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the 
righteous Judge, shall give to me at that day." And 
to remove as it were all possibility of mistake, lest 
any one should suppose that by the phrase, "at that 
day," he refers to the day of his own death, he 
adds in immediate, and one might suppose in alto- 
gether unmistakable, connection, "and not to me 
only, but also to all them that have loved His ap- 
pearing" (v. 8). It was to the resurrection of the 
just, to the day of the reunion of his spirit to 
his resurrected body, that he looked forward with 
eager and expectant eye, for the complete and glori- 
ous fulfillment of all his ardent expectations. 

And is it not in accordance with the nature of 
things that it should be so? The spirit and the 
body of man have been likened, and with beautiful 
appropriateness, to a jewel and its setting. But 
who will say that the jewel is just as valuable with- 
out its setting as with it? Is not the value of 
the precious diamond enhanced? Is not its glit- 
tering splendor brought out into bolder relief, when 



30 The Humanity of the Christ 

the skilful artisan has embedded it in a chastely- 
wrought setting of fine gold? And is it not some- 
what thus with the ethereal spirit of man and its 
tenement of clay? The soul is indeed of first and 
greatest importance; nevertheless the soul, or spirit, 
is by no means the whole man. Man is a physical 
as well as a spiritual being. And is it reasonable 
to suppose that the spirit, while absent from the 
body, is, or ever will be, adequate to all the grand 
possibilities that the eternal future will unfold 
to the redeemed from among men ? Is it not much 
more in accordance with sound reason, as well as 
with Scripture, to suppose that the saints cannot 
enjoy all that fulness of bliss and glory which is in 
store for them, until their spirits shall again have 
put on their early, yet spiritualized and glorified, 
garbs ? 

And is there not great reason to fear, my breth- 
ren, that the Church in these latter days does alto- 
gether too generally ignore the resurrection of the 
body? When, on that memorable day of Pente- 
cost, the apostles began to fulfill their public min- 
istry, did they preach Christ and death? Because 
"it is appointed unto men once to die" (Heb. IX: 
27), did they make use of that fact as the founda- 
tion of all their arguments, to lead men to the 
immediate exercise of repentance toward God, and 



The Humanity of the Christ 31 

of faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ? What are 
the facts in the case? When Peter stood up with 
the eleven he spoke to the multitude of the resur- 
rection of our Lord, and of His coming again to 
execute judgment. Such too was most emphatically 
the twofold burden of his other notable discourse. 
And afterward, when the Sanhedrin had begun to 
utter its threatenings against the disciples, forbid- 
ding them "to speak at all," or to "teach in the 
name of Jesus" (Acts IV:i8), it is recorded, as 
the result of a renewed outpouring of the Holy 
Spirit, that "they spake the word of God with bold- 
ness" (v. 31), the only particular subject of their 
preaching, which the pen of inspiration even stops 
to mention, being recorded in the emphatic state- 
ment, that "the apostles with great power gave" 
their testimony concerning "the resurrection of the 
Lord Jesus" (v. 33). 

But not only at the beginning of the proclama- 
tion of the glad tidings of a now finished work of 
atoning mercy, was the doctrine of the bodily resur- 
rection of the ascended Redeemer made prominent: 
everywhere throughout the book of the Acts, and 
in the apostolic writings, we are told that "Christ 
Jesus . . . died, yea rather . . . was raised from 
the dead" (Rom. VIII 134). 

"This event," says Bernard, "is presented by 



32 The Humanity of the Christ 

them, not simply as the seal of His teaching, or 
more generally (to use the poor and shrunken 
phrase of later times) as the proof of His divine 
mission: but as itself the cause and the commence- 
ment of that new world and eternal life, which 
was consciously 'the hope of Israel,' and uncon- 
sciously the hope of man." 2 

This statement is especially, though by no means 
singularly, true of the teachings of the great apostle 
to the Gentiles. Standing before the Jewish coun- 
cil "he cried out, Brethren, I am a Pharisee, a son 
of Pharisees: touching the hope and resurrection of 
the dead I am called in question" (Acts XXIII: 
6). What else was the meaning of this utterance 
of that fearless and peerless champion of the truth 
of God, but that in so far as the sect of the Phari- 
sees of his day, still continued orthodox in regard 
to those great doctrines of the resurrection of the 
body and the life everlasting, which underlie all 
the teachings of the ancient Hebrew Scriptures 
from Genesis to Malachi, he had never ceased to 
be a Pharisee? At Antioch, in Pisidia, he declared 
to his Hebrew brethren that God, in the raising 
up again of the Lord Jesus, had fulfilled "the prom- 
ise made unto the fathers" (Acts XIII :32). And in 
his defense before king Agrippa he once more af- 
2 Progress of Doctrine in the New Testament, p. 137. 



The Humanity of the Christ 33 

firmed the orthodoxy of his faith as to the Old 
Testament Scriptures, and referring to "the prom- 
ise made of God unto our fathers" (Ch. XXVI: 
6), he adds, "Unto which promise our twelve 
tribes, earnestly serving God night and day, hope 
to attain. And concerning this hope I am accused 
by the Jews, O king!" (v. 7). And then, appeal- 
ing to the sober reason of his skeptical Roman 
judges, he asks, "Why is it judged incredible with 
you, if God doth raise the dead?" (v. 8). And 
further on he declares that in his preaching he had 
but reiterated the teachings of Moses and of the 
prophets, viz., "that the Christ must suffer, and 
. . . that He first by the resurrection of," i. e., 
from among "the dead, should proclaim light both 
to the people and to the Gentiles" (v. 23). 

In the 15th chapter of 1st Corinthians this same 
apostle, in his great argument on the resurrection 
of the body, places the vital importance of this doc- 
trine before us in these forcible terms: "For if the 
dead are not raised, neither hath Christ been raised : 
and if Christ hath not been raised, your faith is 
vain ; ye are yet in your sins. Then they also that 
are fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If we 
have only hoped in Christ in this life, we are of 
all men most pitiable" (v's 16-19). And in the 
8th chapter of Romans, by a bold figure of speech, 



34 The Humanity of the Christ 

he represents the whole lower creation, both ani- 
mate and inanimate, as groaning and travailing "in 
pain together until now, . . . waiting for the adop- 
tion" of the saints, "to wit, the redemption of our 
body" (v's 22-23). To which we need but add 
these words of "the disciple whom Jesus loved," in 
regard to the coming again in glory of our adorable 
Redeemer, "Beloved, now are we children of God, 
and it is not yet made manifest what we shall be. 
We know that, if He shall be manifested, we shall 
be like Him; for we shall see Him even as He is" 
(I. John 111:2). 

Yes, dear brethren and sisters in Christ, the res- 
urrection of the Son of Man is the sure pledge of 
the resurrection to immortal bliss and glory of all 
His believing people. And "if the Spirit of Him 
that raised up Jesus from the dead" indeed "dwell- 
eth in you," then be assured on the testimony of 
Him Who cannot lie, that having "raised up Christ 
Jesus from the dead," He "shall give life also to 
your mortal bodies" (Rom. VIII :n). 

And when the bodies of the saints shall have been 
raised from the dust of the earth, and reunited to 
their immortal spirits, these glorified ones are by 
no means to be confined to the limits of this little 
globe; for they who shall have part "in the resur- 
rection of the just" (Luke XIV 114), shall be "as 



The Humanity of the Christ 35 

angels in heaven" (Matt. XXII 130), and with them 
shall roam over all the vast universe, and shall ex- 
plore with glad surprise the wonderful works of 
God! 

But chief among the joys of that heavenly state 
will be this, — He, Whom having not seen, they 
loved in their state of suffering and trial, the Man 
Christ Jesus, their elder Brother, will walk in their 
midst. And although even in glory the redeemed 
may be still unable fully to fathom the mystery of 
the Godhead, yet He Who first taught them by His 
Spirit to see the Father in Himself, will for ever 
remain — if we may thus speak — the link that shall 
bind them to the throne. And thus the God-Man, 
our adorable Redeemer, will be to all eternity the 
blissful channel whereby "the general assembly and 
Church of the firstborn" (Heb. XII 123), nay, all 
the ransomed sons and daughters of Adam, may 
draw near to the ineffable glory! 

Impenitent friends, is there nothing for you in 
all this? Are there no attractions for you in the 
thought, that for you too it is possible to attain 
"unto the resurrection of life"? (John V:29). 
Would you not delight in the assurance, that you 
shall forever enjoy the society of the wise and the 
good of all ages? That angels and archangels, 
those glorious beings, the sons of God, the morning 



36 The Humanity of the Christ 

stars of light, who, ere the dawn of this nether 
creation, basked in the sunlight of God's counte- 
nance, are to be your eternal, loved, and loving 
companions? And that you too are to be among 
that blessed number whom, in the ages to come, the 
Lord Jesus Christ will honor with His own so- 
ciety, and of whom He will say to the Father, 
They are Mine, "Behold, I and the children" whom 
Thou hast "given Me" (Heb. II:i 3 ) ? 

And remember likewise, impenitent friends, that 
there is also to be a "resurrection of judgment" 
(John V:29) unto eternal condemnation, and that 
even as the resurrected bodies of the redeemed will 
fit them for greater glory, and for more intense 
enjoyment, so it is no less certain that the resur- 
rected bodies of the lost, will fit them for greater 
shame, and for more intense suffering. 

O behold the open door, and count not your- 
selves unworthy of everlasting life, but enter while 
yet the Master calleth for you. For, lo, "The 
Spirit and the bride say, Come. And he that is 
athirst, let him come: he that will, let him take 
the water of life freely" (Rev. XXII 117). 

Before closing suffer us, for a few moments, to 
advert to a strange misunderstanding, which is espe- 
cially apt to prevail among the young. They are 
afraid, should they become Christians, that they 



The Humanity of the Christ 37 

will be compelled at once and for ever, to forego 
all innocent hilarity, and that they must sternly 
repress all exuberance of their youthful spirits. And 
similar views have often been advanced by mature 
Christian people. 

The speaker once had the somewhat startling 
question put to him by an excellent lady in his con- 
gregation, "Does the Bible say that the Savior ever 
laughed?" Suppose it does not, does that make it 
a sin for you or me to laugh ? And has He not given 
His people the joyous assurance, "Blessed are ye 
that weep now, for ye shall laugh"? (Luke VI: 
21). That was a conclusive, as well as "a very 
pretty reply," which was made by a little girl, 
to the statement that our Savior was never seen 
to smile, "Didn't He say, 'Suffer little children to 
come unto Me'? and they would not have come 
unless He had smiled." 

But after all what is it that is to constitute hu- 
man perfection in the eternal world? Will it not 
be the bringing into perfect exercise of all those 
powers of body, as well as of mind and heart, with 
which the all-wise Creator has endowed us? If so, 
then let us not be afraid to give freest scope to all 
the faculties of our wondrously composite being, 
whose well-nigh infinite capabilities, it may be, we 
scarce have begun as yet to dream of, in this in- 



38 The Humanity of the Christ 

cipient stage of our existence. And as to laughing, 
there are different ways of doing that as well as 
everything else. Says the wise Solomon, "As the 
crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter 
of the fool" (Eccle. VII :6); aye, sometimes there 
is a very devil in its sarcastic, cutting tones. But 
the laughter of the grateful, happy child of God, 
hath oft a music in it, that is indeed "a good med- 
icine" (Prov. XVII :22), and that breathes the 
very atmosphere of heaven into the despondent 
soul! 

And who has a better right to be happy and full 
of joy, than he who has "peace with God through 
our Lord Jesus Christ," and who can "rejoice in 
hope of the glory of God"? (Rom. V:i, 2). Ah, 

"Shout! oh, shout! ye heirs of glory; 
You on Jesus' throne shall rest!" 

O think, fellow Christian, of our elder Brother 
as now in glory! O think how soon the day may 
dawn, when we shall "awake" in the likeness 
(Ps. XVII 115) of our glorified Redeemer, and 
when we shall behold the King in His beauty! 

Well has one sung, 

"O blessed, O thrice blessed word! 
To be 'for ever with the Lord,' 
In heavenly beauty, fair! 



The Humanity of the Christ 39 

Up! up! we long to hear the cry, 
Up ! up ! our coming Lord draws nigh ! 
Yes! 'in the twinkling of an eye,' 
To meet Him 'in the air'!" 

Aye! in these same bodies, wondrously spiritual- 
ized and glorified, we shall yet see our blessed 
Master face to face, and in that day we shall sit 
down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and 
with all the saints and martyrs of our God, in the 
kingdom of His glory! And the Lord Jesus will 
be our eternal Companion, and He shall lead us 
beside the "restful waters," 3 and into the green 
pastures of His love! 

"Jesus wept," and to His people this present evil 
world but too often proves "a vale of tears": but, 
blessed be Jehovah our God! the day is coming 
when He "shall wipe away every tear from their 
eyes"! (Rev. VII :i 7). 

* A New Rendering of The Book of Psalms by John 
De Witt, D.D., Ps., XXIII: 2. 



HOW GOD RECONCILED THE WORLD 
UNTO HIMSELF 

HIS PLEA FOR RECONCILIATION 

II Cor. V:i8-2i. "But all things are of God, Who 
reconciled us to Himself through Christ, and gave unto 
us the ministry of reconciliation; to wit, that God was in 
Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, not reckon- 
ing unto them their trespasses, and having committed 
unto us the word of reconciliation. 

"We are ambassadors therefore on behalf of Christ, as 
though God were entreating by us: we beseech you on 
behalf of Christ, be ye reconciled to God. Him Who 
knew no sin He made to be sin on our behalf; that we 
might become the righteousness of God in Him." 

TF persons need to be reconciled to each other, if 
there is need of the establishment of peace and 
harmony between them, if friendship and love need 
to be restored; then the natural and inevitable con- 
clusion is, that a state of things exists which is the 
very opposite of all this. 

The text evidently implies such a state of things, 
where aversion and hatred prevail, rather than 
40 



How God Reconciled the World 41 

friendship and love; and where there is discord and 
strife, rather than harmony and peace. 

And the parties to this sad mutual dislike and 
aversion, and between whom a ceaseless, and, in this 
case, a most unequal contest is being waged, are 
the holy God and man the sinner, the almighty 
Ruler of heaven and earth, and a frail mortal, who 
is but as a worm of the dust before Him. 

Ever since the fall of our first parents the whole 
race has been in this evil plight, and alas for us 
all, if reconciliation were wholly out of the ques- 
tion, for, as says the prophet, "Woe unto him that 
striveth with his Maker" (Is. XLV:o,). 

But, blessed be God! while our text clearly im- 
plies the existence of an unfriendly and warlike 
state of things, it does not simply imply, or give 
us reason to infer or conclude, but speaks to us in 
the clearest and most positive terms, of the fact 
that steps have actually been taken to bring about 
a reconciliation. 

And which of the parties is seeking this recon- 
ciliation? Which of them first set himself to work 
to restore peace and harmony? 

Did erring, sinful man first undertake this work? 
And is he now everywhere earnestly striving to 
make peace between God and himself? Did you 
ever hear of anything of that sort? 



42 The Humanity of the Christ 

Ah, no! Not the creature, but the Creator first 
set about this stupendous work. And if He, the 
all-wise, the all-holy One, were this day, this hour, 
this moment to cease His efforts, not a single un- 
converted man, woman, or child would henceforth 
take even a single step, or make the slightest right 
endeavor, in that direction. 

God does not foreordain any one to damnation. 
Alas! alas! fallen man ever and always consigns 
himself to eternal death, save as Divine grace inter- 
poses to save him from himself! 

No! it is not man the sinner, but a holy and 
justly offended God, of Whose efforts at recon- 
ciliation the text speaks to us. As the Holy Spirit, 
speaking through the mouth of the apostle, here 
affirms, "All things" that are good and perfect, 
whatever concerns man's present well-being and 
his eternal salvation, they are all "of God." 

Yes, and blessed be His holy name for ever! the 
text does assure us that God has Himself entered 
upon this great and stupendous undertaking; that 
He has actually undertaken, not the work of stamp- 
ing out rebellion by crushing His enemies, for with 
a word He could hurl them every one to everlast- 
ing, remediless destruction; but rather, that He 
has imposed upon Himself the far more difficult 



How God Reconciled the World 43 

task, of changing rebels into loyal and devoted sub- 
jects, bitter enemies into loving friends. 

The text sets forth: 

First: The way in which God laid the founda- 
tion for this work: 

Second: Reminds us of some most signal suc- 
cesses that had already crowned the completion of 
this wondrous scheme of 

"Love Divine, all love excelling — " 

and, Third: Directs our thoughts to the means 
whereby He has in ages past, and is still continuing 
to carry on, the mighty and self-imposed task. 

"God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto 
Himself, not reckoning unto them their trespasses." 

When? When the Son of God appeared in mor- 
tal flesh, and especially from the very hour that our 
blessed Redeemer publicly entered upon His great 
work. 

No sooner has He received His priestly baptism 
at the hand of His forerunner, and been anointed 
by the Holy Spirit, but He is led forth into the 
wilderness, there to surfer the pangs of bodily hun- 
ger, and for forty days to be tempted of the Devil. 

And ever after, while going about on His er- 
rands of love and mercy, and proclaiming salvation 
to the lost, He was destitute and afflicted. While 



44 The Humanity of the Christ 

the foxes had holes, and the birds of heaven had 
their nests, He, the Son of Man, had not where to 
lay His head. Nay, He was persecuted and tor- 
mented by a world that He had come to save. Says 
the apostle, "For ye know the grace of our Lord 
Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for 
your sakes He became poor, that ye through His 
poverty might become rich" (II. Cor. VIII 19). 

We remark, in the next place, that He had 
come to stand in the place of guilty man, and so 
Justice treated Him as though He were the sinner. 
"Him Who knew no sin He made to be sin on our 
behalf; that we might become the righteousness of 
God in Him." Says the prophet Isaiah, "He was 
despised, and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, 
and acquainted with grief: and, as one from whom 
men hide their face, He was despised; and we es- 
teemed Him not. Surely He hath borne our griefs, 
and carried our sorrows; yet we did esteem Him 
stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But He 
was wounded for our transgressions, He was 
bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our 
peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we 
are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; 
we have turned every one to his own way; and 
Jehovah hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all" 
(CL LIII:3-6). 



How God Reconciled the World 45 

This is the only possible explanation, consistent 
with the Divine justice, not only of the agony of 
Gethsemane, of the cruel scourging by the Roman 
soldiery, and of the shameful death on the cross, but 
of the whole earthly life of the sinless Son of Man. 

The sufferings and persecutions so often endured 
by the people of God, at the hands of the wicked, 
are no just comparison whatever. Though of such 
"the world was not worthy" (Heb. XI 138), yet 
they had themselves all sinned against God, and the 
worst that the world could do to them, is as noth- 
ing compared to what eternal Justice would mete 
out to them, had not Mercy found a Ransom. 

But it is the sinless, the holy One, Who lives a 
life of poverty, Who is despised and rejected of 
men. He too it was Who took upon Himself the 
form of a Servant, and Who became obedient unto 
death, even unto the cruel and shameful death of 
the cross! Why? and where is the justice of all 
this? Our text gives the answer. "God was in 
Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself." 

He is the Gift of the Father. "For God so 
loved the world, that He gave His only begotten 
Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not 
perish, but have eternal life. For God sent not 
His Son into the world to judge the world; but 



46 The Humanity of the Christ 

that the world should be saved through Him" 
(John III :i6-i7). 

For this very purpose was He sent, and came 
He into the world. "I lay down My life for the 
sheep. . . . Therefore doth the Father love Me, 
because I lay down My life, that I may take it 
again. No one taketh it away from Me, but 
I lay it down of Myself. I have power," i. e., the 
right or authority, "to lay it down, and I have 
power," i. e., the right or authority, "to take it 
again." Our Lord here twice uses the very same 
word, which occurs in the Greek text of Matt. X:i, 
and where we read in our Revised English Ver- 
sions, that "He called unto Him His twelve dis- 
ciples, and gave them authority over unclean spir- 
its." And it is with these remarkably significant 
words, that our Lord ends this declaration as to 
His absolute power and authority over His own 
earthly, human life: "This commandment received 
I from My Father" (John X:i5, 17-18). And 
the Holy Spirit caused the very same evangelist, 
who wrote all this for the edification of the Church 
in after ages, to give to the world the proof and 
the demonstration that the Savior did have this 
power and authority, as we find in Ch. XVIII 14-9, 
where our Lord, by a mere word, first caused the 
band that had come to take Him to fall to the 



How God Reconciled the World 47 

ground, and then freely gave Himself into their 
hands. "Again therefore He asked them, Whom 
seek ye? And they said, Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus 
answered, I told you that I am He." And when 
Simon Peter had drawn his sword, "and struck the 
high priest's servant, and cut off his right ear," our 
Lord said to him, "Put up the sword into the 
sheath: the cup which the Father hath given Me, 
shall I not drink it?" (v's io-ii). From Matt. 
XXVI 153-54 we quote these additional words of 
our Lord to this impetuous disciple, "Or thinkest 
thou that I cannot beseech My Father, and He 
shall even now send Me more than twelve legions 
of angels? How then should the Scriptures be ful- 
filled, that thus it must be?" On the day of His 
resurrection He said to the two, with whom He 
walked on the way to Emmaus, "O foolish men, 
and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets 
have spoken! Behooved it not the Christ to suf- 
fer these things, and to enter into His glory? And 
beginning from Moses and from all the prophets, 
He interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the 
things concerning Himself." And that same eve- 
ning He said to the little company, that were 
gathered in an upper room, "These are My words 
which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, 
that all things must needs be fulfilled, which are 



48 The Humanity of the Christ 

written in the law of Moses, and the prophets, and 
the psalms, concerning Me" (Luke XXIV 125-27, 

44)- 

The common supposition that our Lord, in Geth- 
semane, prayed to be delivered from the death of 
the cross, we are fully persuaded, is entirely wrong. 
That is a thought which surely never entered the 
Savior's mind. It is not possible to enlarge on that 
matter in this connection, but it does seem utterly 
out of the question, in view of His oft repeated 
declarations, that He had come for that very pur- 
pose, that even amidst the unspeakable agony of 
the garden, He should have asked to be delivered 
from such a death, and surely He never would, 
even for a single moment, have felt any fear of 
physical death in any form whatever. But what 
would have been the appalling result, if, as the 
burden of a world's guilt rolled in upon His soul, 
life had given way in Gethsemane? He would 
have lived in vain! Such a death could never have 
atoned for human guilt! 

The following Scriptures furnish proof absolute 
as to all that. "But when the fulness of the time 
came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, 
born under the law, that He might redeem them 
that were under the law, that we might receive 
the adoption of sons" (Gal. IV 14-5 ). "Knowing 



How God Reconciled the World 49 

that ye were redeemed, not with corruptible things, 
with silver or gold, from your vain manner of life 
handed down from your fathers ; but with precious 
blood, as of a lamb without blemish and without 
spot, even the blood of Christ" (I. Pet. I:i8-ig). 
"Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, 
having become a curse for us; for it is written, 
Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree" (Gal. 
III:i3). And so our Lord prayed that His life 
might be spared for the supreme agony of the cross ; 
prayed, as we read in Heb. V:7, "with strong cry- 
ing and tears unto Him that was able to save Him 
from death!' A prayer which the Holy Spirit as- 
sures us was "heard" 

It ought to be scarce needful to remark that our 
Lord was sent of the Father, and that He gladly 
came upon His errand of love and mercy, because 
there was no other possible way of escape for guilty 
man. "And He saw that there was no man, and 
wondered that there was no intercessor: therefore 
His own arm brought salvation unto Him; and His 
righteousness, it upheld Him" (Is. LIX:i6). "In 
the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, . . . and 
in none other is there salvation: for neither is there 
any other name under heaven, that is given among 
men, wherein we must be saved" (Acts IV:iO, 

12). 



50 The Humanity of the Christ 

God's determination to vindicate His holy law, 
and to punish the transgressor; this is not only 
a tremendous truth for the persistent rebel; it is 
also full of comfort and joy to all holy intelligences, 
and to every pardoned sinner as well. Says an- 
other, "God hates sin as much as His awful threat- 
enings say He does; and they who deny it deny 
the God of heaven. They deny His holiness, His 
real abhorrence of sin. They exhibit a false god 
to the human mind — a god without principle, a 
god without character. Such a God on the throne 
of the universe, and every angel would drop his 
harp, every 'demon' shout in ecstasy. The bands 
of God's moral dominion would be broken, the pil- 
lars of eternal justice would fall, and heaven fall 
with them ; the fires of hell burst forth unchecked, 
and rebellion stand triumphant on the ruins. Such 
is not the God of heaven !" x 

And because sin might not, could not go unpun- 
ished, therefore the love and wisdom of God de- 
vised and carried out this wondrous scheme, 
whereby man might be redeemed, while Justice re- 
ceived her due. 

In Gethsemane, before the Sanhedrin, at Pilate's 
court, and especially on Golgotha, "God was in 
Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself." 

1 Nathaniel W. Taylor, D.D. 



How God Reconciled the World 51 

In Gethsemane our Lord had, as it were, the 
dreadful foretaste of the wrath of God against a 
world that "lieth in the evil one" (I. John Vug). 
Into the awful mystery of that agony and bloody 
sweat we may not penetrate. But, dear hearer, if 
an evil heart of unbelief, or the world, or Satan, 
ever tempts you to cherish the fatal delusion that 
sin is a trifling matter, then go to dark Gethsemane, 
and look at the God-Man as He begins "to be 
sorrowful," "greatly amazed, and sore troubled" 
(Matt. XXVI 137; Mark XIV 133). Hear Him 
say to His three favored disciples, "My soul is ex- 
ceeding sorrowful, even unto death: abide ye here, 
and watch with Me" (Matt. XXVI 138). Aye, 
look at Him there, as He lies prostrate upon the 
cold ground, and list to that earnest, piercing cry 
which He sends up to heaven, "My Father! if it 
be possible, let this cup pass away from Me: never- 
theless, not as I will, but as Thou wilt" (v. 39). 
Is that Life, upon Whose offering up on Golgotha's 
cross depends the salvation of untold millions of 
the human race, to come to an end with a mere 
ordinary death in the garden of Gethsemane? No! 
oh no! blessed be the God of our salvation, for 
see, there comes "an angel from heaven, strengthen- 
ing Him" (Luke XXII 143 ). And now again He 
is "in an agony," and He prays yet "more earn- 



52 The Humanity of the Christ 

estly." And now the sweat that oozes from that 
holy countenance, which has never been marked by 
the faintest trace of a single sin-defiled emotion of 
His pure soul; "His sweat" becomes "as it were 
great drops of blood falling down upon the ground" 

(v. 44). 

But lo! the scene changes. The Son of Man 
rises from the mysterious conflict, joins Himself 
again to His bewildered and sorrow-stricken dis- 
ciples, meets the traitor, Judas Iscariot, and the 
band that comes out against Him with swords and 
staves, as though He were a highway robber. 
Freely He delivers Himself up that night into the 
power of His deadly foes. And see how an un- 
principled and infamous high priest, and his im- 
pious fellow judges, trample upon law and justice, 
in their mad haste to vilify and condemn the inno- 
cent object of their envy and malice! 

Follow these men, whom Satan is leading on; 
follow them, as early in the morning they are hur- 
rying their unresisting Captive through the streets 
of Jerusalem, and drag Him before Pilate's judg- 
ment-bar. Hear them clamoring for the judicial 
murder of Him "Who went about doing good" 
(Acts X:38). And see how they hurry hither and 
thither, and everywhere, among the rabble, like so 
many imps of darkness, goading them on in the 



How God Reconciled the World 53 

mad cry, "Away with Him! away with Him! Cru- 
cify Him! crucify Him!" O listen, if you can, as 
the cruel lash is laid again and again upon those 
bared shoulders. Look at that crown of thorns, 
which is being pressed upon that sacred head! And 
then see the mocked, beaten, bleeding Victim of 
their rage, sinking under the weight of His cross, 
as He is led forth to execution, as a lamb to the 
slaughter! Look! they are binding Him to the 
accursed tree, and the rude Roman soldiers are 
driving the nails through His quivering flesh ! And 
do you hear those fiendish taunts of His enemies? 
But see how blackness gathers over all nature; 

"How the sun in darkness hides, 
And shuts his glories in, 
While He, the mighty Maker, dies 
For man, the creature's, sin !" 

But hark! for there issues from the lips of the 
dying Sufferer a cry of untold agony and woe, 
"Eli! Eli! lama sabachthani! ... My God! My 
God! why hast Thou forsaken Me?" 

O! dear dying soul, 

"Go to Golgotha, and tell 
Why the scourge, the crown of thorns; 
Why the powers of earth and hell 
Join in deeds of hate and scorn; 



54 The Humanity of the Christ 

Why such innocence in tears, 
On the shameful cross appears. 

Go to Golgotha, and learn 

All the bitterness of sin; 

In those scenes of wrath discern 

What thine own desert hath been. 

Thine the shame, reproach, and guilt; 

'Twas for thee that blood was spilt." 

Then and thus it was "that God was in Christ, 
reconciling the world unto Himself, not reckoning 
unto them their trespasses. ... Him Who knew 
no sin He made to be sin on our behalf: that we 
might become the righteousness of God in Him." 

The righteousness here spoken of is, first of all, 
a justifying righteousness. "There is therefore now 
no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus" 
"For Christ is the end of the law unto righteous- 
ness to every one that believeth" (Rom. VIII :i ; 
X: 4 ). 

"The moment a sinner believes, 
And trusts in his crucified Lord, 
His pardon at once he receives, 
Redemption in full through His blood." 

And this righteousness likewise assures us of 
everything else that is needful, to insure the be- 
liever's perfect sanctification, and his eternal 
blessedness and glorification. 



How God Reconciled the World 55 

The demands of the law having thus been fully 
met, and eternal Justice having received its due, 
being now fully satisfied, infinite Mercy would 
have her share, and so God comes to us, in the 
Gospel of His Son, assuring us that in Christ He is 
fully reconciled, and so now He pleads with us to 
be reconciled unto Him. 

This is God's plea for reconciliation, not man's. 
"But all things are of God." And He comes to 
you, impenitent friends, with the evidence all about 
you of the efficacy of this wondrous plan of re- 
deeming love. "Who reconciled us to Himself 
through Christ, and gave unto us the ministry of 
reconciliation ; . . . and having committed unto us 
the word of reconciliation." 

God does not send angels, but commissions re- 
deemed sinners to proclaim the message of pardon 
and of peace. "An angel of the Lord spake unto 
Philip, saying, Arise, and go toward the south, 
unto the way that goeth down from Jerusalem unto 
Gaza: the same is desert. And he arose and went: 
and behold, a man of Ethiopia, a eunuch of great 
authority under Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, 
who was over all her treasure, who had come to 
Jerusalem to worship; and he was returning and 
sitting in his chariot, and was reading the prophet 
Isaiah. And the Spirit said unto Philip, Go, near, 



56 The Humanity of the Christ 

and join thyself to this chariot" (Acts VIII :26- 
29). And so it was not the angel, but Philip who 
"preached Jesus" to the Ethiopian treasurer. And 
when that fiery persecutor, Saul of Tarsus, was 
arrested in his mad career, the Lord Jesus did not 
again appear to him at Damascus, as He had shown 
Himself to him on the way, but " there was a cer- 
tain disciple at Damascus, named Ananias; and 
the Lord said unto him in a vision, . . . Arise, and 
go to the street which is called Straight, and in- 
quire in the house of Judas for one named Saul, 
a man of Tarsus: for behold, he prayeth." And so 
it was Ananias who, "laying his hands on him, said, 
Brother Saul, the Lord, even Jesus, Who appeared 
unto thee in the way which thou earnest, hath sent 
me, that thou mayest receive thy sight, and be 
filled with the Holy Spirit" (Ch. IXnoii, 17). 

The grace that has saved such as these, and the 
multitudes who through the ages have come to 
Christ, ought to satisfy you. And, whoever you 
are, this grace of God is able to meet your case, 
can save you. 

"We are ambassadors therefore on behalf of 
Christ, as though God were entreating by us: we 
beseech you on behalf of Christ; be ye reconciled 
to God." 

O remember, Christless soul, as we have thus 



How God Reconciled the World 57 

endeavored to make plain to you the way of salva- 
tion, that it is not simply an erring fellow-mortal, 
but God Himself Who entreats you to be recon- 
ciled to Him. 

He gave the Son of His love unto the shameful 
and cruel death of the cross, that you might be 
saved from the death eternal of soul and body in 
hell! And shall God plead with you in vain? 

"Sinners! will ye scorn the message 
Sent in mercy from above? 
Every sentence, oh how tender! 
Every line is full of love! 

Listen to it — 
Every line is full of love." 

Do not, we pray you, let Satan, or your own 
evil heart, delude you with the idea that you are to 
prepare yourself in order to be saved. 

"The carnal mind" (A.V.), "The mind," or 
minding, "of the flesh, is enmity against God" 
(Rom. VIII :']). Such are you. What now is to be 
done first of all? Why, enmity must cease. You 
must begin to love that Holy One Whom you have 
hated hitherto. How? Not by means of cold, heart- 
less reasoning. No amount of reasoning has ever 
saved a soul from death. How then? By looking to 
the cross. By taking God at His word. "He that 
hath received His witness hath set his seal to this, 



58 The Humanity of the Christ 

that God is true" (John 111:33). "God was in 
Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself." "He 
that believeth on the Son hath eternal life" (John 
111:36), has it as an actual, present possession. "For 
this is the will of My Father, that every one that 
beholdeth the Son, and believeth on Him, should 
have eternal life; and I will raise him up at the 
last day" (Ch. VI .-40). Take God at His word, 
and you are a saved soul; saved now, and saved 
eternally ! 

And now God beseeches, entreats you by us; and 
we pray you "on behalf of Christ," and in His 
stead, "be ye reconciled to God." And speaking 
to you as in the sight of God and of Christ, we put 
to each one of you the solemn question, Will you 
leave tljis house to-day as a friend, or as an enemy, 
of God and of Christ? 

The Savior brings before our minds the appalling 
destiny of the poor, deluded "rich man," who, after 
a life of worldly ease, suddenly lifted up his eyes 
in the regions of the damned, "being in torments." 
To his plea for mercy, and for a little help, came 
back the words of Abraham, "Son, remember" 
(Luke XVI :i9, 23, 25). And what if even one 
of you, beloved hearers, should, while out of Christ, 
and unreconciled to God, suddenly be summoned 
from the flitting scenes of time to the solemn, un- 



How God Reconciled the World 59 

changing realities of eternity? Ah! this very hour 
will rise up against you in judgment, and con- 
demn you. And the remembrance of it will haunt 
you for ever! Oh! we beseech you, to-day, even 
now, "remember" the goodness, and mercy, and 
grace of God in Christ. Now take to heart the 
good, the blessed news of salvation, and "be ye 
reconciled to God." 

He is waiting to receive you, and to bless you. 

"Heaven comes down our souls to greet, 
And glory crowns the mercy-seat." 

Would you not like to be forgiven? to be recon- 
ciled to God? to have Him for your Friend? Re- 
member that He does not need to be persuaded, 
or to be made willing, to pardon your sins, and to 
make you His son or daughter. In Christ He is 
reconciled, and has been reconciled since the very 
hour that the expiring Sufferer on the cross ut- 
tered the triumphant shout, "It is finished!" (John 
XIX : 3 o). 

And the mercy of our God is infinite, yea, He 
Himself beseeches and entreats you to accept a free, 
full, and everlasting pardon at His hands. As says 
the poet, 

"Kind hearts are here; yet would the tenderest one 
Have limits. God has none. 



60 The Humanity of the Christ 

And man's forgiveness may be true and sweet, 
But yet he stoops to give it. More complete 
Is love that lays forgiveness at thy feet, 
And pleads with thee to raise it. Only heaven 
Means crowned, not vanquished, when it says 
'Forgiven.' " 2 
The way is prepared. "Behold, all things are 
ready" (Matt. XXII 4). "For by one offering He 
hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified" 
(Heb. X:i4). "Ho, every one that thirsteth, come 
ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come 
ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk 
without money and without price. . . . Seek ye Je- 
hovah while He may be found; call ye upon Him 
while He is near: let the wicked forsake his way, 
and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him 
return unto Jehovah, and He will have mercy 
upon him ; and to our God, for He will abundantly 
pardon. For My thoughts are not your thoughts, 
neither are your ways My ways, saith Jehovah. 
For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so 
are My ways higher than your ways, and My 
thoughts than your thoughts" (Is. LV:i, 6-9). 

O remember that it is God Who is "entreating 
by us" this hour, and once again "we beseech you 
on behalf of Christ," and in His stead, "be ye 
reconciled to God!" 
2 A. A. Procter in Christian Lyrics, page 358. 



THE NEED OF PRESSING ONWARD IN 
THE DIVINE LIFE 

Heb. VI 13. "And this will <we do, if God permit'* 

TN the 5th chapter, at the ioth verse, the apostle 
says that our Lord was "named of God," i. e., 
called, addressed, entitled, "a High Priest after 
the order of Melchizedek." He then declares that 
he has "many things to say" in regard to that mys- 
terious personage, but which are very difficult to 
explain, "seeing" that those to whom he wrote had 
"become dull of hearing." 

Those Hebrew Christians had made no satisfac- 
tory progress in the divine life. The apostle plainly 
intimates that they had failed to make a proper 
use of the opportunities which they had enjoyed, 
and which ought to have made them thoroughly ac- 
quainted with the great doctrines of our holy re- 
ligion, so as to have become skilful "teachers" of 
"the word of righteousness." Men and women 
whose spiritual discernment had become so keen, 
that they could readily distinguish between the good 
and the evil, the true and the false. Instead, how- 
61 



62 The Humanity of the Christ 

ever, of this proficiency in divine things, they were 
in the condition of those who, like helpless babes, 
needed to be fed on the simplest of spiritual diet, 
rather than with that more substantial food, which 
is fitted to nourish and strengthen the life of the 
mature Christian. 

Nevertheless, he immediately proceeds to exhort 
them to bestir themselves, and no longer to be con- 
tent with such mean attainments in the divine life. 

"Therefore," he says, "leaving the principles of 
the doctrine," or, as more accurately translated 
in the Revised Version, "Wherefore leaving the 
doctrine of the first principles of Christ," the literal 
rendering being, the word of the beginning of 
Christ, i. e., the rudiments, or elementary princi- 
ples, of Christian truth, "let us press on unto per- 
fection." 

He then specifies the doctrines which he calls the 
beginning of things for the believer in Christ. "Not 
laying again a foundation of repentance from dead 
works, and of faith toward God, of the teaching 
of baptisms, and of laying on of hands, and of 
resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment." 
All these things being settled, their minds having 
been fully made up in regard to these fundamental 
doctrines of our holy religion, they were to "press 
on unto perfection;" they were henceforth to aim 



Need of Pressing Onward in Divine Life 63 

at the "full growth" (Marg. R. V.) of the ma- 
ture disciple. 

From chapter V:n to the end of the following 
chapter is, in fact, an interjected clause, or digres- 
sion, in which the sacred writer, pausing in his pro- 
found argument concerning the Melchizedekian 
priesthood of Christ, seeks to arouse his fellow 
believers to give earnest heed to the momentous 
truths that he is endeavoring to unfold, by remind- 
ing them, on the one hand, of the appalling destiny 
of those who deliberately turn away from the light 
of heaven, and, on the other, both of their own 
loving toil for God and His saints, and of the 
exceeding greatness and the certainty of His prom- 
ises to the faithful. 

"And this will we do, if God permit." 

The main question which we would propound 
here is this, Were those early Hebrew disciples, 
or rather, are we all of us, to whom the Holy Spirit 
speaks to-day, in these words of His revealed truth ; 
is each one of us, my dear hearers, prepared to re- 
spond to the entreaty and exhortation of the text, 
so as to be able to say that we are in a proper state 
of mind and heart to "press on unto perfection"? 

And let us note, first of all, that neither the text, 
nor yet the preceding context, furnishes the slight- 
est warrant for treating with disdain all, or any 



64 The Humanity of the Christ 

one of, the doctrines here referred to, or indeed 
any other doctrine taught in the Word of God. 
Hosts of shallow-brained would-be philosophers of 
our day are indeed ever ready to disparage the value 
of the doctrines of our holy religion. But in their 
mad haste to decry these doctrines, they show them- 
selves either wilfully or stupidly ignorant of the 
fact, that a system of doctrines is simply truth 
formulated. They might as well tell us that a 
man can be a believer in Christ without believing 
anything, as to say that a Christian ought not to 
disturb himself about doctrines. If they had either 
themselves studied their mother-tongue long enough, 
to know that the word "doctrine" simply means 
something that is taught, or else did not presume 
quite so much upon the ignorance of others, they 
might perhaps stop insulting intelligent Christian 
people with their flippant nonsense about doctrines. 
What sane man would demand of the young astron- 
omer, who is anxious to become proficient in his 
noble science, that he treat with contempt the doc- 
trines enunciated by a Galileo, a Kepler, or a New- 
ton, in regard to the physical universe? And yet 
when we seek to explore somewhat the fathomless 
mine of revealed truth, where we learn of God, the 
Creator of all things, and of His sovereign will; 
of man the creature, of his guilt, of the possibility 



Need of Pressing Onward in Divine Life 65 

of his being saved, and of his eternal destiny of 
glory or despair: lo and behold, what a change! We 
are not to trouble ourselves about doctrines! Do 
such people really think that Christians are all 
idiots? or does their wicked rage against the truth 
of God lead them to make fools of themselves? 

"Wherefore leaving the doctrine of the first prin- 
ciples of Christ, let us press on unto perfection." 

The writer addresses himself, not to those who 
openly despised, nor yet to such as foolishly ignored, 
any fundamental truth of revelation: but rather 
to such as were, or who ought to have been, rooted 
and grounded in those great doctrines, that lie at 
the very foundation of the temple of Christian 
truth. It was not for such as they to be "laying 
again a foundation of repentance from dead works, 
and of faith toward God," and the like. Their 
minds ought to have been made up long ago in re- 
gard to these preliminary doctrines, so that they 
might now bend their energies to the contemplation 
of other truths, whose intelligent reception would 
enrich their minds, and fit them for greater useful- 
ness. 

As the apostle wrote to Timothy, some people are 
"ever learning, and" yet "never able to come to the 
knowledge of the truth" (II. Tim. 111:7). And 
so they for ever remain "children, tossed to and 



66 The Humanity of the Christ 

fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, 
by the sleight of men, in craftiness, after the wiles 
of error" (Eph. IV:i 4 ). 

But, alas! how many such overgrown children 
there are in the Church to-day! How many, al- 
though they have had the Bible within their reach 
from very infancy, are yet wholly at sea in regard 
to its every doctrine! They for ever dwell in 
"doubting-castle," never excel, and are no comfort 
to themselves, nor helpful to others. 

Contrariwise the Scripture bids each one to "be 
fully assured in his own mind" (Rom. XIV :5). 
And while it doubtless is a mischievous thing for 
a person to mistake falsehood for truth, error for 
sound doctrine: yet it's better by far to believe 
wrongly than not to believe at all. A persecuting 
Saul of Tarsus is preferable to a Gallio, who cares 
"for none of these things" (Acts XVIII 117). The 
first is ever the more hopeful case. And the great 
trouble, alas! with the mass of modern skeptics, and 
that which renders their case generally so hopeless, 
is their utter indifference to moral and religious 
truth. They are not unbelievers because they have 
carefully and honestly sought to investigate the 
claims of Christ upon them, for their loving faith 
and obedience, but because they have never earn- 
estly heeded the Savior's voice, and don't care. And 



Need of Pressing Onward in Divine Life 67 

so they are hard to reach, for, as Dean Swift has 
aptly said, "It is useless to attempt to argue a man 
out of a thing he was never reasoned into." 

Let us, who are Christ's, beware lest we be 
found guilty of like folly. 

We may attain to a well-defined, a self-assuring, 
and a settled conviction in regard to many of the 
doctrines of revealed truth. Even to "little chil- 
dren" the aged apostle John wrote, "Ye have an 
anointing from the Holy One, and ye know all 
things. I have not written unto you because ye 
know not the truth, but because ye know it, and 
because no lie is of the truth" (I. John II: 18, 20, 
21). The Spirit of God had taught these children 
every doctrine that was essential to their salvation. 
And is not that blessed Spirit of all grace, the third 
Person of the adorable Godhead, still as able and 
as willing to help both the old and the young, to a 
clear and definite understanding of the truth of 
God ? And has not our Lord declared that he who 
is willing to do the will of God, and to cast him- 
self upon His mercy in Christ, "shall know of the 
teaching," that "it is of God"? (John VII:i7). 
Said the three-year-old daughter of a minister of 
the Gospel, to a gentleman who called to see her 
father, "No, papa is not in; but if it's about your 
soul, I can tell you all about that." And why 



68 The Humanity of the Christ 

shouldn't that little child have been able to tell the 
man all he needed to know about the love of God 
in Christ? Many a learned theologian has been 
utterly in the dark as to all that, but did not our 
Lord say, in Matt. XI 125, "I thank Thee, O 
Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that Thou didst 
hide these things from the wise and understanding, 
and didst reveal them unto babes"? 

And this is the heaven-born privilege of each 
one of us, to "be fully assured in his own mind." 
The Bible was written for the common people; not 
for the exclusive benefit of speculative philosophers, 
or to become the special property of a tyrannical 
and avaricious priesthood. God meant that the 
common people should read, and study, and under- 
stand it for themselves. The Thessalonians were 
solemnly adjured to see to it, that a certain letter 
of the apostle Paul "be read unto all the brethren" 
(I. Thess. V:27), while the Colossian saints were 
commanded, when they should have read his epistle, 
to give the like opportunity to a neighboring church 
(Col. IV: 16). And a crying shame it is, that in 
these days of Gospel liberty and cheap Bibles, so 
many so-called Protestants neglect and practically 
despise their glorious heritage, to secure which, both 
for themselves and for later generations, the men 



Need of Pressing Onward in Divine Life 69 

and women of the Reformation struggled, suffered, 
bled, and died! 

It is, moreover, our solemn duty to become 
"strong in the Lord, and in the strength of His 
might" (Eph. VI:io), in order that we may be 
"ready always," as the apostle Peter admonishes 
us, "to give answer," "with meekness and fear," 
"to every man that asketh you a reason concerning 
the hope that is in you" (I. Pet. Ill 115). Said 
that great German writer, Johann Wolfgang von 
Goethe, "If I am to listen to the opinions of an- 
other, they must be positively enunciated. I have 
enough of the problematic within myself." Oh! 
my brethren, let impenitent men know that you 
believe something! They are often painfully anx- 
ious to know. 

And how else can we "press on unto perfection"? 
How else can we ever attain to the "full growth" 
of men and women in Christ Jesus ? To the Philip- 
pians Paul wrote that he had as yet by no means 
attained to perfection ; but he added, "Only, where- 
unto we have attained, by that same rule let us 
walk" (Ch. Ill: 16). And so he prayed for his 
Ephesian brethren, "That He would grant you, ac- 
cording to the riches of His glory, that ye may be 
strengthened with power through His Spirit in the 
inward man ; that Christ may dwell in your hearts 



70 The Humanity of the Christ 

through faith ; to the end that ye, being rooted and 
grounded in love, may be strong to apprehend with 
all the saints, what is the breadth and length and 
height and depth, and to know the love of Christ 
which passeth knowledge, that ye may be filled unto 
all the fulness of God" (Eph. III:i6-i9). 

It is a trite saying, and a good one too, "Be sure 
that you are right, and then go ahead." And let 
us be sure, my brethren, that we are not building 
our hopes for eternity upon the sand, but that our 
feet are planted upon the solid rock, and then, in 
the name of our God, let us press forward! 

But why, we ask again, should the Christian be 
"established in" the "faith"? (Col. 11:7). To re- 
cline at his ease, and to take his comfort for the 
rest of his days? A young lad one evening heard 
his father and some of the neighbors talking about 
certain members of the church, when some one 
mentioned Deacon So-and-so, a man who was of 
precious little use, either in the church or in the 
community at large. O well, they said, "He's es- 
tablished." The boy couldn't quite understand 
what they meant, but a few days later he was with 
his father on the road, with a one-horse team, and 
when they got to a muddy place the animal all at 
once stood stock-still, and simply wouldn't budge, 
when his father turned to him with the question : 



Need of Pressing Onward in Divine Life 71 

"Why won't the horse draw?" and the boy 
thought he got some light on the subject: 

"Well, I don't know, father; I guess he's estab- 
lished." 

"For it is good that the heart be established by 
grace" (Heb. XIII 19). Yes! with "grace," grace 
to dispel the mists of doubt that becloud the soul's 
eternal prospects; grace to buckle on afresh the 
Christian armor, and to fight with redoubled en- 
ergy "the good fight" of "the faith" (II. Tim. 
IV: 7 ). 

That's a grand word of the aged apostle Paul, 
"And, having done all, to stand" (Eph. VI 113). 
Ah! that is a glorious thing to do, "to withstand in 
the evil day, and" then, when the battle is over, and 
the victory won, still to stand, facing the foe ! Mar- 
tin Luther has not inaptly rendered the apostle's 
language, when he bids us accomplish all things 
well, and then hold the field. 

Some very good people, who dream about having 
become perfectly holy, talk about a "rest in faith," 
as though the time had come, even while hosts of 
wicked spirits, and godless men and women, are 
still holding high carnival in the earth, for the 
Lord's people to show how well they like to see 
things go on as they are in this world, by just sit- 
ting still, and letting the Devil have his own way! 



72 The Humanity of the Christ 

"Oh, no! we can't vote; our citizenship is in 
heaven." Better for us all to try and give the 
world a little taste of heaven before we get there! 

We are to "rest" in Christ, indeed, for our per- 
sonal salvation; not, however, to become loiterers 
in the King's highway of holiness, but in order that 
we may work with the more unremitting ardor, 
and the more successfully, for the promotion of 
His glory, for the salvation of a dying world. As 
some one has beautifully said, 

"Quiet from God, it cometh not to still 
The vast and high aspirings of the soul, 
The deep emotions that the spirit fill, 
And speed its purpose onward to the goal. 

It dims not youth's bright eye, 

Bends not joy's lofty brow; 

No guileless ecstasy 

Need in its presence bow. 

It comes not in a sullen form to place 
Life's greatest good in an inglorious rest, 
Through a dull beaten track its way to trace, 
And to lethargic slumber lull the breast. 

Action may be its sphere, 

Mountain paths, boundless fields, 

O'er billows its career; 

This is the strength it yields. 

To sojourn in the world, and yet apart, 

To dwell with God, and yet with man to feel, 



Need of Pressing Onward in Divine Life 73 

To bear about for ever in the heart 
The gladness that His Spirit doth reveal. 

Not to deem evil gone 

From every earthly scene, 

To see the storm come on, 

But feel His shield between. 

It giveth not a power to human kind 
To lay all suffering powerless at His feet, 
But keeps within the temple of the mind 
A golden altar and a mercy seat, 

A spiritual ark, 

Bearing the peace of God 

Above the waters dark 

And o'er the desert-sod." 1 

There is a passage in the 4th chapter of the Ephe- 
sian epistle which, as it has generally been ren- 
dered in most modern European translations of the 
Bible, has given altogether too much aid and com- 
fort, to the spiritual indolence that still so lament- 
ably prevails in many of our churches. And so 
the inspired Paul, whose own glowing zeal for the 
Master never abated, and whose soul could have 
no pleasure in those who shrank back in the hour 
of conflict and of danger, has been made to teach 
that our Lord Jesus Christ, when He "ascended 
far above all the heavens, that He might fill all 
things," at the first gave apostles and prophets, and 

1 Christian Lyrics, page 407. 



74 The Humanity of the Christ 

then and now, "some evangelists; and some, pastors 
and teachers," in order that they, and they only, 
might labor "for the perfecting of the saints, . . . 
for the edifying of the body of Christ" (verses 10, 
II, 12). 

The German translators seem alone to have ap- 
prehended the meaning of the Spirit in this place; 
a meaning which is now made sufficiently plain in 
the Revised English New Testament, whence it ap- 
pears that Christ gave both apostles and prophets, 
evangelists, and pastors and teachers, i. e., teaching 
pastors, in order that they might perfect "the saints 
unto the work of ministering " that thus, by the 
mutual and united labors of the ministry and the 
laity, "the body of Christ" may be built up, "till 
we all attain unto the unity of the faith, and of the 
knowledge of the Son of God, unto" a perfect, "a 
fullgrown, man, unto the measure of the stature 
of the fulness of Christ" (verse 13). 

"And this will we do." O, my hearers! there 
are reasons the most solemn and awe-inspiring, why 
we should press on to higher and more profound 
conceptions of divine truth. "For as touching those 
who were once enlightened and tasted of the heav- 
enly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy 
Spirit, and tasted the good word of God, and the 
powers of the age to come, and then fell away, it 



Need of Pressing Onward in Divine Life 75 

is impossible to renew them again unto repentance; 
seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God 
afresh, and put Him to an open shame" (v's 4-6). 
Ah ! it is dangerous to halt by the way. The ranks 
of the apostates are not filled up from among the 
earnest, working disciples, but from among the 
idlers and the stragglers in the Lord's army. 

Be afraid for yourself, if you make no progress 
at all, and yet are perfectly satisfied with yourself. 
You need not be discouraged simply because you 
have made such slight attainments. The more your 
knowledge of divine truth increases, the more the 
grand doctrines of the Bible unfold themselves be- 
fore your vision, the more you become conformed 
in heart and life to the matchless example of the 
Lord Jesus, the farther off the goal will seem to 
you. Such has ever been the universal experience 
of the wisest, the most eminent saints. The Rev. 
Dr. Isaac Watts could say, "I bless God, I can lie 
down with comfort to-night, not being anxious 
whether I awake in this world or another." And 
yet Dr. Watts also said, that there were three 
things that he expected would surprise him when 
he got to heaven; that he would miss many whom 
he had expected to see there; that many would be 
there whom he had not expected to find there; and 



76 The Humanity of the Christ 

the greatest surprise of all would be to find himself 
there. 

But, my dear hearer, beware of being satisfied to 
remain as you are. Over forty years ago we had 
the privilege of hearing that noble-minded Chris- 
tian merchant prince, the late John V. Farwell, of 
Chicago, addressing the Presbyterian Synod of Wis- 
consin. A story had been going round in the re- 
ligious press, of a certain thankful church member. 
He was reported to have got up in a class meeting 
one day, saying, "I bless God for the Methodist 
Episcopal Church. I have been a member of it 
for twenty-five years, and it has only cost me twen- 
ty-five cents !" Mr. Farwell asked a Methodist min- 
ister of his acquaintance, whom he met on the 
train on his way to Synod, if that story was true. 
"Yes," said the minister, "I was pastor of the 
church, and I turned to him and said, 'God Al- 
mighty have mercy on your stingy soul!' But to- 
day," he added, "he is one of the most liberal men 
in that church." 

Ah ! we have something more to do, my brethren, 
something higher to aim at, than simply to get to 
heaven! We ought to seek to lay up greater treas- 
ure for "the world to come" (Heb. 11:5) ; that our 
joy may be the greater, our crown of righteousness 
the more radiant with glory! 



Need of Pressing Onward in Divine Life 77 

Our blessed Redeemer has promised large rewards 
to those that serve Him faithfully. They that have 
been "faithful over a few things," He will "set over 
many things" (Matt. XXV 123). And to those, who 
have used the unrighteous mammon for His glory, 
and for the salvation of the perishing, He will ere- 
long entrust the true and eternal riches. 

Said the angel to the prophet Daniel, "And they 
that are wise shall shine as the brightness of the 
firmament; and they that turn many to righteous- 
ness as the stars for ever and ever" (Ch. XII 13). 
And even among these there will be degrees in bliss 
and glory, even as "one star difrereth from another 
star in glory" (I. Cor. XV 141). • 

We may do damage, then, to our eternal heritage, 
even though the soul be not lost. Thus we read in 
I. Cor. Ill: 1 5, "If any man's work shall be burned, 
he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; 
yet so as through fire." And what of those pro- 
fessing Christians, who have never even undertaken 
to build anything upon the only true foundation, 
"which is Jesus Christ" (v. n) ? 

Yet how few think of these things. "If I am 
only saved." Oh, that's a low view for a Chris- 
tian to take! Even Moses chose "rather to share 
ill treatment with the people of God, than to en- 
joy the pleasures of sin for a season ; accounting the 



78 The Humanity of the Christ 

reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures 
of Egypt: for he looked unto the recompense of re- 
* ward" (Heb. XI 125-26) . If Moses could thus fix 
his eye on the promised reward; if "he endured as 
seeing Him Who is invisible" (v. 27) ; shall not 
each one of us emulate his noble example, and fix 
our eyes on that "crown of righteousness, which the 
Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give ... to all 
them that have loved His appearing"? (II. Tim. 
IV :8). 

"And this will we do, if God permit." The com- 
pound Greek particle, eavirep, here rendered by 
"if," occurs in only two other places in the New 
Testament, viz., in chapter 111:6 and 14, of this 
same epistle; verses which deserve our most serious 
attention in the present connection. "But Christ as 
a Son, over His house; Whose house are we, if we 
hold fast our boldness and the glorying of our hope 
firm unto the end." "For we are become partakers 
of Christ, if we hold fast the beginning of our con- 
fidence firm unto the end." But, alas ! even as there 
are said to be some animals who hibernate in sum- 
mer, so there are not a few Christian people, who 
are zealous as Jehu for two or three months in the 
winter, and dead as a stone the rest of the year. Of 
what value is that sort of piety? And is a "revival" 
brought about by such people a blessing? Is it of 






Need of Pressing Onward in Divine Life 79 

God? And what do men of the world think? 
"And this will we do, if God permit." This then 
is the test of the reality and genuineness of our 
Christian experience hitherto, viz., that we "press 
on unto perfection." And the solemn thought is 
pressed home upon our minds and hearts, by the 
closing words of the text, that we can do nothing, 
cannot take a single step forward in the divine life, 
without help from on high. For all needed strength 
and opportunity we are wholly dependent upon the 
sovereign Disposer of all things. So then we are to 
"work out" our "own salvation with fear and trem- 
bling; for it is God Who worketh in" us, "both to 
will and to work, for His good pleasure" (Phil. 
II:i2-i3). And knowing not how much, or rather, 
how little of time may still be allotted to any one 
of us, in this present evil world, let us be up and 
doing, adopting for ourselves the language of the 
poet: 

"Onward! the goal thou seekest 
Is worthy the quest of a life, 
And love can give to the weakest 
Courage and strength for the strife. 

High is the prize above thee, 
In the light of that golden sky; 
The ladder's not all of sunshine, 
Whereon thou must climb so high. 



8o The Humanity of the Christ 

Earth's shadows and griefs have darkened, 
Earth's sorrows have shaded its light, 
But rays from the sunshine of heaven 
Each upward step make bright. 

Sometimes the glory paleth, 
And its brightness disappears; 
'Tis only thy eye that faileth, 
Or is dimmed by earth-born tears. 

Onward! our cry for ever, 
Till our glorious goal be won, 
Mid the brightness failing never 
Of the light-enshrouded sun." 2 

*L. R. in Christian Lyrics, page 18. 



SATAN'S GREAT MASTERPIECE 



THE RISE AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE ANTICHRIST 

II Thess. 11:3-4, 8 > 9 -10 - "Let no man beguile 
you in any wise: for it will not be, except the 
falling away come first, and the man of sin be revealed, 
the son of perdition, he that opposeth and exalteth him- 
self against all that is called God, or that is worshipped; 
so that he sitteth in the temple of God, setting himself 
forth as God. . . . And then shall be revealed the law- 
less one, . . . even he, whose coming is according to the 
working of Satan, with all power and signs and lying 
wonders, and with all deceit of unrighteousness for them 
that perish; because they received not the love of the 
truth, that they might be saved" 

CATAN'S Great Masterpiece — who or what will 

it be? Before the final consummation dawns 

upon this sin-cursed earth, and the Lord Jesus 

The above discourse was prepared, by request, for a 
local Monthly Pre-Millennial Bible Conference, and de- 
livered at St. Paul's German Evangelical Church, De- 
troit, and published in The Christian Workers' Magazine, 
81 



82 The Humanity of the Christ 

Christ returns in His glory, and, as the Son of 
Man, the predestined King of kings and Lord 
of lords, inaugurates His benignant reign of per- 
fect righteousness and everlasting peace over man 
in the flesh, and restores all things to a more than 
pristine beauty and loveliness; before all this be- 
gins to come to pass, what are we to look for? 
What will the archenemy of God and man, "the 

organ of The Moody Bible Institute of Chicago, for 
August, 191 5. It was composed before the beginning of 
the dreadful world war that is now raging. So many 
things have happened in these last few years, that, to 
bring it up to date, would make it altogether out of pro- 
portion with the other parts of the present volume. It 
is, therefore, given here exactly as published in said 
Magazine. The author begs leave simply to add a few 
words in this explanatory note. As the Scriptures plainly 
inform us, the battle of Armageddon is not on as yet. 
That can only take place after the Jews shall have come 
into peaceful possession of the land of Palestine, and 
after they shall have entered into a seven years' league, 
or covenant, with the Antichrist, whom they will have 
hailed as their Messiah. See John V:43; Dan. IX 127 ; 
Ezekiel XXXVIII and XXXIX; Joel III:i-2, 9-13; Zech. 
XIV:i-i5- As for this consummate egotist and ruthless 
destroyer, Kaiser Wilhelm, of Germany, being the Anti- 
christ: well, he is bad enough; but when Satan comes 
to fairly outdo himself, he will produce a monster in 
human form, that, intellectually as well as in every other 
way, will far surpass this fiend of Potsdam. 



Satan s Great Masterpiece 83 

great dragon . . . the old serpent, he that is called 
the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole 
world" (Rev. XII 19) ; what will he yet undertake 
to do, as a last desperate attempt to thwart the 
merciful designs of the Triune Jehovah for the 
redemption of a lost race? 

From the very day that Satan, as the old serpent, 
succeeded in beguiling Eve in his craftiness (II. 
Cor. XI :3), he has been "going to and fro in the 
earth, and . . . walking up and down in it" (Job 
1:7), seeking what he can do to hinder the work 
of God, and to ruin the souls of men. 

When the Son of God was manifested in 
mortal flesh, and had come to give His life for our 
salvation, how Satan roused "the principalities, 
. . . the powers, . . . the world-rulers of this 
darkness" (Eph. VI:i2), in order to frustrate the 
Divine purposes of love and mercy, while he himself, 
as "the prince of the world" (John XIV :3o), was 
for ever dogging the footsteps of the lowly Naza- 
rene, until, in that woeful "hour," when the Son 
of Man was given over to "the power of darkness" 
(Luke XXII :53), he at last succeeded in nailing 
Him to the accursed tree. 

But brief was Satan's triumph, for our blessed 
Lord broke asunder the bars of death, "because 
it was not possible that He should be holden of 



84 The Humanity of the Christ 

it" (Acts 11:24)., The enemy of all good, how- 
ever, soon recovered from the chagrin of his dis- 
mal failure, and so he himself, and all "the spiritual 
hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places" (Eph. 
VI: 12), started in at once to persecute the Lord's 
followers. As the Savior had foretold, the enemy 
likewise soon began to sow tares among the wheat, 
so that erelong the Church began to swarm with 
teachers of error and delusion, while, in process of 
time, hypocritical and fraudulent pretence of every 
sort, almost wholly obscured "the faith which was 
once for all delivered unto the saints" (Jude 3). 

FALSE CHRISTS AND FALSE PROPHETS 

Having found "nothing in" the Christ (John 
XIV :3o), whereby he might hinder the full accom- 
plishment of the Divine purpose, Satan soon began 
to produce "false Christs, and false prophets" 
(Matt. XXIV :24), and even antichrists. To the 
elders of Ephesus, whom the apostle Paul had sum- 
moned to meet him at Miletus, he declared, "I 
know that after my departure grievous wolves shall 
enter in among you, not sparing the flock ; and from 
among your own selves shall men arise, speaking 
perverse things, to draw away the disciples after 
them" (Acts XX:2g). And toward the close of 



Satan s Great Masterpiece 85 

the century, "the disciple whom Jesus loved" (John 
XXI :2o) gave utterance to this pregnant prophecy, 
"Little children, it is the last hour: and as ye heard 
that antichrist cometh, even now have there arisen 
many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the 
last hour" (I. John II:i8). 

In a little more than five centuries after the 
venerable apostle wrote these words the Papacy had 
become fully established, and the bishop of Rome, 
as the pretended and boastful successor of the apos- 
tle Peter, had begun to assume the most horrible 
and blasphemous titles, "not opposing, but assert- 
ing an equality with God, . . . being not offend- 
ed to be styled by his parasites, 'Our Lord God the 
Pope, Another God on earth, King of Kings and 
Lord of Lords, Our most holy Lord, the victorious 
God and man in his See of Rome, God the best and 
greatest, Vice-God, the Lamb of God that taketh 
away the sins of the world, the Most Holy who 
carrieth the Most Holy' " Duffield on the Prophe- 
cies, page 282. The Prophetic Conference, Alle- 
gheny, Penn., Dec, 1895, page 21. 

In view of such awful assumptions, which papal 
Rome has never been slow to enforce by cruel im- 
prisonment, by inhuman tortures, and by its dia- 
bolical autos da fe, it is little wonder that able 
scholars, both premillenarians and postmillenarians, 



86 The Humanity of the Christ 

have long held that here we assuredly have the little 
horn of Daniel's prophecy, who should "speak words 
against the Most High" (Dan. VII 125), and like- 
wise the scarlet woman, "The mother of the 

HARLOTS AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE 

earth," whom the aged revelator "saw . . . 
drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the 
blood of the martyrs of Jesus" (Rev. XVII 15-6). 

To quote Prof. W. G. Moorehead: "The marks 
of correspondence between the prediction and the 
Papacy are extraordinary, almost conclusive. In 
its marvelous origin and history; in its near rela- 
tion to the old Roman Empire as its heir and suc- 
cessor — for, as Wylie says, 'the Papacy is the ghost 
of Peter crowned with the shadowy diadem of the 
old Caesars'; in its wide departure from the truth; 
in its idolatry, persecuting spirit, daring assump- 
tions, and blasphemous pretensions, the Papacy, it 
must be confessed, strikingly resembles the Man of 
Sin. No one can compare the two without feeling 
the force of Richard Baxter's quaint remark, 'If 
the Pope be not Antichrist, he has bad luck to be 
so like him.' " 

is the papacy antichrist? 

Devout students of prophecy have, however, 
more and more come to the same conclusion as Dr. 



Satan's Great Masterpiece 87 

Moorehead, viz., that, "wonderful as the parallelism 
is, and traceable to almost any length, nevertheless 
the Papacy does not fill up nor complete the titanic 
portrait of the final adversary which the prophetic 
word furnishes us. Rather this system belongs to 
the apostasy which precedes and issues in the reve- 
lation of Antichrist, and is identified with Babylon 
of the Apocalypse. That a revival of its influence 
and power is now going on, Germany, Britain, and 
the United States attest. And this is in exact ac- 
cord with the predictions about its last days. The 
final view which the Spirit of prophecy gives us of 
Babylon the harlot, the apostate church, presents her 
as throned upon the Seven Hills; as seated on the 
Beast, controlling and using the world-power for 
the accomplishment of her own purposes (Rev. 
XVII). But she is not alone. Babylon is a mother, 
Babylon has daughters. Who would venture to 
deny that there are signs of a falling away from 
the truth of God in Protestantism itself?" 

To all of which it is, alas! altogether safe to add 
that multitudes of so-called Protestants do not claim 
to know anything whatever about personal conver- 
sion or spiritual regeneration, or are ever earnestly 
concerned about doing the will of God. Indeed, 
"All his thoughts are, There is no God" (Ps. X:4). 

Well may we expect that something even far 



88 The Humanity of the Christ 

worse than Popery, with all its frightful abomina- 
tions, yet awaits a godless world and a dead church. 
And Rome and all her daughters, for that is what 
Protestant churches are, just in so far as they are 
like her in their dead formalism, and in their prac- 
tical denial of the Lord Who bought them ; they are 
together to become the prey of "the Son of per- 
dition," of "The beast that ... is about to come 
up out of the abyss" (Rev. XVII :8). In other 
words, Satan is yet going to fairly outdo himself ! 

And now let us prayerfully inquire whether in- 
deed Holy Scripture warrants and demands such a 
belief, as to the Devil's last and supreme attempt to 
overthrow the work of God, and to defy high 
Heaven. Is that enemy of all righteousness, "the 
deceiver of the whole world," when, after he and 
his angels have been thrust out of heaven, and when 
he has come down to this earth "having great wrath, 
knowing that he hath but a short time" (Rev. XII: 
12) ; is he yet going to produce a great masterpiece, 
that will verily be his chef-d'oeuvre, by which, 
at one swoop, he will bring, not simply the whole 
of merely nominal Christendom, but all the inhab- 
ited earth, to the feet of a pseudo-Christ, mocking 
high Heaven, and deluding an apostate race, by pro- 
ducing a blasphemous counterfeit of Him, Who 
shall then speedily come to cast the archfiend "into 



Satan s Great Masterpiece 89 

the abyss" (Rev. XX 13), "and to bring in everlast- 
ing righteousness" (Dan. IX-24) ? Momentous 
question! What Scriptural ground is there for all 
that? 

A TERRIBLE ONE TO ARISE 

A terrible One is to arise, the like of whom the 
world has never seen as yet. Let us briefly refer to 
the way in which Holy Writ speaks of him. "Thou 
shalt take up this parable against the king of Baby- 
lon, and say, How hath the oppressor ceased! the 
golden city ceased! . . . How art thou fallen from 
heaven, O day-star, son of the morning! how art 
thou cut down to the ground, that didst lay low the 
nations ! And thou saidst in thy heart, I will ascend 
into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars 
of God; and I will sit upon the mount of congre- 
gation, in the remotest parts of the north ; I will 
ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make 
myself like the Most High. Yet thou shalt be 
brought down to Sheol, to the uttermost parts of the 
pit" (Is. XIV : 4) 12-15). 

This language cannot possibly be ascribed to 
Babylon's famous ancient king, for read Daniel 
IV:37, and bear in mind that this is his last re- 
corded utterance, "Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise 
and extol and honor the King of heaven ; for all His 



go The Humanity of the Christ 

works are truth, and His ways justice; and those 
that walk in pride He is able to abase." Far less 
can we apply this language of Isaiah's prophecy to 
his grandson Belshazzar, with whose drunken feast 
the Chaldean monarchy was suddenly brought to an 
inglorious end. Daniel VII 17-8 speaks of "a fourth 
beast, terrible and powerful, and strong exceedingly ; 
and it had great iron teeth; it devoured and brake 
in pieces, and stamped the residue with its feet: and 
it was diverse from all the beasts that were before 
it, and it had ten horns. I considered the horns, 
and, behold, there came up among them another 
horn, a little one, before which three of the first 
horns were plucked up by the roots; and, behold, in 
this horn were eyes like the eyes of a man, and a 
mouth speaking great things." Daniel VIII :g 
speaks of "a little horn" which came forth out of 
one of "four notable horns" (v. 8), that had come 
up instead of "the he-goat," i.e., Alexander the 
Great of Macedonia, and this "little horn . . . 
waxed exceeding great, toward the south, and to- 
ward the east, and toward the glorious land." 
Verses 23-25 tell us of this same little horn, as "a 
king of fierce countenance, and understanding dark 
sentences," who "shall stand up. And his power 
shall be mighty, but not by his own power; and he 
shall destroy wonderfully, and shall prosper and do 



Satan s Great Masterpiece 91 

his pleasure; and he shall destroy the mighty ones 
and the holy people. And through his policy he shall 
cause craft to prosper in his hand ; and he shall mag- 
nify himself in his heart, and in their security shall 
he destroy many; he shall also stand up against the 
prince of princes; but he shall be broken without 
hand." Chapter IX:26 mentions "the prince that 
shall come." In chapter XI:2i we read of "a con- 
temptible person," who "shall obtain the kingdom by 
flatteries." And this is what is said of his bold career 
in verse 36, "And the king shall do according to his 
will; and he shall exalt himself, and magnify him- 
self above every god, and shall speak marvelous 
things against the God of gods; and he shall pros- 
per till the indignation be accomplished; for that 
which is determined shall be done." In our text 
he appears as "the Man of sin, the Son of perdi- 
tion, the Lawless One." In I. John II :i8 as the 
"Antichrist." And in Rev. XIII :i as "a beast com- 
ing up out of the sea, having ten horns and seven 
heads, and on his horns ten diadems, and upon his 
heads names of blasphemy." 

One thing ought to be quite evident. This ter- 
rible one, represented to us in these different ways, 
surely does not stand for a long line of popes, or 
any other succession of oppressors; nor for any sys- 
tem of error, be it Roman Catholicism, Mohammed- 



Q2 The Humanity of the Christ 

anism, or any other false system of doctrine. Some 
one individual is manifestly pointed out, who, when 
he appears, will indeed do wonderful exploits. But 
no such a frightful character, as here portrayed, ap- 
peared before, or at the time of our Lord's first 
advent, nor has he ever yet appeared. 

Antiochus Epiphanes, 176 to 164 B.C., with his 
overweening pride and appalling blasphemy, did 
frightful things. That monster of history, the Em- 
peror Nero, gave the world no slight intimation 
of what the Antichrist will bring to pass one of 
these days. That scourge of Europe, Napoleon 
Bonaparte, went a long way toward realizing the 
woeful picture: but Heaven's hour for letting loose 
the powers of evil had not yet struck, and so the 
haughty ruler of France had to meet his Waterloo, 
and finally ended his days on the lonely rock of 
St. Helena. 

WHO IS THE MAN OF SIN? 

Who then is to be the Man of Sin, whose mighty 
deeds shall yet astound the world, so that "the whole 
earth" shall wonder "after the beast" (Rev. XIII: 

3)? _ 

Without in any wise presuming to settle that 
question, let us call your attention to one man's 
observations on the subject. We refer to Joseph 



Satan s Great Masterpiece 93 

Birkbeck Burroughs, M.D., of Oberlin, Ohio, and 
his interesting volume, entitled, Titan, Son of Sat- 
urn; The Coming World Emperor. 

His conclusions may be summed up in few words. 
Rev. XVII:g-u reads, "Here is the mind that 
hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven moun- 
tains, on which the woman sitteth: and they are 
seven kings ; the five are fallen, the one is, the other 
is not yet come ; and when he cometh, he must con- 
tinue a little while. And the beast that was, and 
is not, is himself also an eighth, and is of the seven ; 
and he goeth into perdition." Dr. Burroughs re- 
minds us that "Before the Christian era there had 
been five great persecuting kings. These five heads 
and their kingdoms had all fallen. 

"Pharaoh, the great head of Egypt. 

"Sennacherib, the great head of Assyria. 

"Nebuchadnezzar, the great head of Babylon. 

"Ahasuerus, the great head of Medeo-Persia. 

"Antiochus, the great head of Greek-Syria. 

"The one who persecuted in John's day was Nero, 
emperor of Rome. This makes six." Our author 
does not inquire as to who was the seventh, who 
came after John's day. But "After the seventh 
there is to come an eighth, and this eighth crowned 
persecutor is still in the future." 

"This eight Devil-inspired ruler," he reminds us, 



94 The Humanity of the Christ 

"is not to be a new man on the world's stage. 
John tells us that he is not to be an individual dis- 
tinct and separate from the group of seven kings. 
He is to be one of the seven, honored above the 
others by being permitted to reign a second time 
over the nations. 

" 'He is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth 
into perdition.' John not only has told that this 
eighth king will be one of the first seven re-crowned, 
but he also throws out the sixth and the seventh king 
as possible candidates for this future honor. He 
tells us that the eighth king will be one of the first 
five who are dead. 'The beast that thou sawest, 
was (alive), and is not (alive) ; and is about to 
come up out of the abyss' (v. 8). (Codex Sinaiti- 
cus, kai palin parestai, shall again be here.) 

" 'And the beast that was, and is not, is himself 
also an eighth, and is of the seven.' 

"Thus," according to Dr. Burroughs, "this eighth 
world monarch, John points out, is one of the first 
five who will be restored to life. He who is coming 
a second time is either Pharaoh, Sennacherib, Neb- 
uchadnezzar, Ahasuerus, or Antiochus." 

And Daniel, in chapter VIII :g, 23, 25, already 
quoted, saw, as he maintains, "that the great Anti- 
christ would, in a restored life, be Ba-sil-e-os An-ti- 
o-chus The-os E-piph-an-es, which, being interpreted, 



Satan s Great Masterpiece 95 

reads: The King — appearing — holds out against — 
God." 

WILL BABYLON BE REBUILT? 

But we must hasten to briefly consider another 
matter. The coming Antichrist, whoever he may 
prove to be; where will he establish his royal 
throne? From what great city will he issue those 
fearful mandates that will appall the nations? We 
verily believe that "Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, 
the beauty of the Chaldeans' pride" (Is. XIII 119), 
will be rebuilt by him, and that he will make her, 
as the restored capital of the nations, far more glo- 
rious than of old, until the end come, when it "shall 
be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah." 

At an international prophetic conference, held De- 
cember 1 01 5, 1 90 1, in the Clarendon Street Baptist 
Church, Boston, Massachusetts, the Rev. Sholto D. 
C. Douglas, of Scotland, delivered an address on 
"The Antichrist; His Character and History," 
from which we quote the whole of this remarkable 
paragraph: "It would appear," says Mr. Douglas, 
"that Babylon mystical, of Revelation XVII, dif- 
fers from Babylon literal (without the word 'mysti- 
cal'). The characteristic of the destruction of this 
Babylon is its suddenness, as mentioned four times 
in Rev. XVIII :8, 9, 17, 19. I would ask you to 



96 The Humanity of the Christ 

read the whole of this chapter." And here comes 
the really remarkable sentence, "A being so great 
will not live in a borrowed capital, such as Babylon 
mystical, or Rome, but in one which he will build 
for himself. Now, where great cities have been, 
they may be again, if the conditions which led to 
their existence be restored. Only then let the coun- 
try be irrigated as before, and its marvelous fer- 
tility will be restored. The line for the much-talked- 
of railway of the Euphrates Valley has already been 
surveyed, and no one living in the present day of 
great and rapid changes, would be bold enough to 
say that such a means of communication cannot and 
will not be constructed. Thus the great city will 
have even greater facilities . . . than its prede- 
cessor." 

Thus declared this Scotch brother in the year of 
grace 1901. And what now are the present day 
facts? The Bagdad railway has not only been sur- 
veyed, but the Porte has granted a concession for 
99 years, and also a guaranty, and it is hastening 
to its completion. The first section, the Konieh- 
Eregh-Burgurlu line, extending eastward from Ko- 
nieh (the ancient Iconium, 310 miles east of Smyr- 
na, on the Mgean Sea (Acts XIV), was opened in 
1904. The total length of the line will be 1,550 
miles, extending from the Mediterranean Sea to 






Satan s Great Masterpiece 97 

the Tigris River and will run through Aintab and 
Berejik to Mosul, thence along the right bank of 
the Tigris to Bagdad, i.e., within 60 miles of Baby- 
lon! 

Mr. William T. Ellis, Editor Afield of The Con- 
tinent, of Chicago, speaking of the route of this 
German Bagdad railway, says, "This newest inter- 
national highway runs over the world's oldest and 
most beaten paths. It stretches from the Hellespont 
to the Persian Gulf. Its tracks already down, or 
projected on surveyors' charts, overlie the footprints 
of the apostle Paul, of Cyrus, Darius, Alexander 
the Great, Constantine, Nebuchadnezzar, Sennache- 
rib, Harun-al-Rashid, Saladin, Richard the Lion- 
Hearted, Mahmud the Conqueror, and — well, a 
ticket over the new Bagdad railway is equivalent to 
a course in ancient history." 

And here fits in the marvelous story of the irriga- 
tion of ancient Mesopotamia. For ages the waters 
of the Euphrates and the Tigris have run to waste 
in the desert, or have accumulated in unwholesome 
marshes, and the devastation and decay of centuries 
have set their mark upon enormous areas, that in 
ancient times, when well watered, were extraordi- 
narily fertile. After lying dormant for ages, like 
Palestine itself, as the result of devastating wars, 
Tartar inroads, and Turkish apathy, fertility is 



98 The Humanity of the Christ 

about to be restored to these desolate regions as by 
the wave of a magician's wand. In 1909 an Eng- 
lish engineer, Sir William Willcocks, was com- 
missioned by the Turkish government to prepare an 
irrigation scheme. His plan entailed an expenditure 
of $75,000,000. A part of this gigantic scheme has 
already been completed. In December, 19 13, the 
Hindiyeh barrage of the river Euphrates was inaug- 
urated, and practical effect is thus being given to 
this vast scheme of irrigation in Mesopotamia, 
which, when completed, will entirely restore fertil- 
ity to a sterile country, and instead of about one 
and a half million of people getting a precarious 
and inadequate livelihood, there will soon be, ac- 
cording to Sir Willcocks, comfortable subsistence for 
a population of eleven or twelve millions. 

PROPRIETY OF CAUTION 

Two or three cautionary remarks are in place 
right here. Let us beware, on the one hand, of 
being wise above what is written, and of making the 
serious mistake of treating our surmises, however 
plausible, as though they were already assured facts. 
On the other hand, let us not fail to give most se- 
rious consideration to what may prove to be one of 
the most startling developments in the unfoldings of 



Satan 's Great Masterpiece 99 

Providence. Babylon may rise again before our 
very eyes, and may speedily attain to more than 
its pristine glory! 

Thus everything seems to be getting ready for the 
appearance of "The Son of Perdition." One .of 
these days war will be proclaimed in heaven. Satan 
and his armies will be for ever thrust out from 
those blessed regions, and will be "cast down to 
the earth" (Rev. XII :g). And the Devil is com- 
ing down "having great wrath, knowing that he 
hath but a short time" (v. 12). 

All that will then be needed will be for God to 
withdraw Him "Who restraineth now" (II. Thess. 
11:7), an d Satan's Great Masterpiece will soon ap- 
pear, and then, alas! "Woe for the earth and for 
the sea," and for those who dwell in them! 

One word more and we must close. Two revela- 
tions and two personal appearings are clearly fore- 
told in the Book of God. "The Man of Sin, The 
Son of Perdition, The Lawless One," will first be 
revealed ; will personally appear to vent the rage of 
Satan, "the god of this age" (II. Cor. IV 14 and 
margin), "against the God of gods" (Dan. XI 136), 
and against all who are His true worshipers; and 
then also "shall appear the sign of The Son of Man 
in heaven" (Matt. XXIV 130), Who "shall slay" 
him "with the breath of His mouth, and bring" 



IOO The Humanity of the Christ 

him "to nought by the manifestation of His com- 
ing," of His parousia, His personal presence (II. 
Thess. 11:8). 

May the God of all grace help us all so to live, 
that ere these mighty events "begin to come to pass," 
we may all be "caught up to meet the Lord in the 
air ; and so shall we ever be with the Lord." Amen, 
and Amen! 






CHRISTIAN LIGHTS IN THE WORLD, 

AND HOW THEY ARE TO HOLD FORTH 

THE WORD OF LIFE 

Phil. II: 15-16. "Among whom ye are seen as lights 
in the world, holding forth the word of life." 

'HpHE terms light and darkness are frequently used 
in Scripture as symbolic of good and evil, of 
righteousness and iniquity. 

This world is full of evil, of folly, of wickedness, 
and of crime — darkness broods over the minds and 
hearts of men, as once it did over primeval chaos. 
And fallen man loves to have it so. Said our Lord 
to Nicodemus, "And this is the judgment, that the 
light is come into the world, and men loved the 
darkness rather than the light ; for their works were 
evil" (John Illrig). 

But God is absolutely holy; perfect in all the 
attributes of His matchless being, that is, to use the 
figurative language of Holy Writ, "God is light, 
and in Him is no darkness at all" (I. John 1:5). 

Now these two, light and darkness, as we all know 
to be true in nature, cannot abide each other. 
101 



102 The Humanity of the Christ 

Hence the Holy Spirit admonishes us, II. Cor. VI: 
14-15, "Be not unequally yoked with unbelievers: 
for what fellowship have righteousness and iniquity- 
or what communion hath light with darkness ? And 
what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what por- 
tion hath a believer with an unbeliever?" 

"Let there be light" (Gen. 1:3), in the Hebrew, 
"Light be!" said the voice omnipotent, "and there 
was light. . . . And God divided the light from 
the darkness" (v. 4), and thus began the work of 
fitting up this globe, as an abode for a new race of 
intelligent beings. And in allusion to this act of the 
great Creator a holy apostle declares, II. Cor. 
IV :6, "Seeing it is God, that said, Light shall shine 
out of darkness, Who shined in our hearts, to give 
the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in 
the face of Jesus Christ." And our Lord had, at 
the very beginning of his notable career, commis- 
sioned him to go to the people of Israel and to the 
Gentiles, "to open their eyes, that they may turn 
from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan 
unto God" (Acts XXVI :i8). "Ye are the 
light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot 
be hid" (Matt. V:i4). It is thus that the 
Savior characterizes His disciples. These, and 
many like Scriptures, all positively declare, or as- 
sume, that our fallen race is groping about in moral 



Christian Lights in the World 103 

and spiritual darkness; or, in other words, that the 
children of God, as we read in the context, are liv- 
ing "in the midst of a crooked and perverse genera- 
tion, among whom" says our text, "ye are seen as 
lights in the world, holding forth the word of life" 

"As lights," that is, as luminaries or illumina- 
tors; or again, as openings for the light to shine 
through, as doors or windows. 

And so the Lord's people are to demonstrate to 
the world that "lieth in the evil one" (I. John 
V:i9), the fact that they are "children of God," 
by the blamelessness, the unselfishness, and the 
wholly unblemished character of their lives from 
day to day. 

Has God lit up your soul with the light of 
heaven? O, then, let it shine forth! 

The moon has no light of its own, but it is a 
faithful reflector of the light of the sun. And in 
winter, when we see so little of the king of day, 
she shines much longer than in summer, and per- 
forms her queenly task with all the more unweary- 
ing faithfulness for the belated traveler. 

Now the Lord Jesus Christ is declared to be 
"The Sun of Righteousness" (Mai. IV :2), and 
never before, in the history of our race, was He, 
the Son of God, so long a time absent from this 
dark world. 



104 The Humanity of the Christ 

Some one has written an interesting work, en- 
titled, The Ten Theophanies, 1 viz., the ten times 
when our Lord, during previous dispensations of the 
grace of God, manifested Himself to the children 
of men. Let us, in passing, briefly refer to the more 
memorable of those occasions, when He, the Son of 
God, appeared in the likeness of man, to make 
known and to execute the will and purpose of 
Heaven. 

He was "the Voice of Jehovah God, walking in 
the garden in the cool of the day" ; Who proclaimed 
the protevangelium in Eden, saying to the serpent, 
who, "in his craftiness" (II. Cor. XI 13), had be- 
guiled Eve, the mother of us all, "And I will put 
enmity between thee and the woman, and between 
thy seed and her seed : He shall bruise thy head, and 
thou shalt bruise His heel" (Gen. 111:8, 15). 

He was "the Judge of all the earth" (Gen. 
XVIII :2$) with Whom the patriarch Abraham 
plead in behalf of the guilty cities of the plain. 

When Jacob fled to escape from his enraged 
brother Esau, we are told that "he lighted upon a 
certain place, and tarried there all night, . . . and 
lay down in that place to sleep. And he dreamed ; 
and, behold, a ladder set up on the earth, and the 
top of it reached to heaven ; and, behold, the angels 

^ev. William M. Baker, D.D. 



Christian Lights in the World 105 

of God ascending and descending on it. And, be- 
hold, Jehovah stood above it, and said, I am Jeho- 
vah, the God of Abraham thy father, and the God 
of Isaac" (Gen. XXVIII ni-13). 

To Moses, "in the land of Midian," He "ap- 
peared" as "the Angel of Jehovah ... in a flame 
of fire out of the midst of a bush. . . . Moreover 
He said, I am the God of thy father, the God of 
Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. 
. . . I AM THAT I AM" (Ex. 11:5; HI:2, 

6, 14). 

To Joshua He appeared "as Prince of the host of 
Jehovah" (Joshua V:i4). 

And when Babylon's haughty monarch had caused 
Daniel's three friends, Shadrach, Meshach, and 
Abednego, to be "cast into the midst of the burning 
fiery furnace. . . . Then Nebuchadnezzar the 
king was astonished, and rose up in haste: he spake 
and said unto his counsellors, Did not we cast three 
men bound into the midst of the fire? They an- 
swered and said unto the king, True, O king. He 
answered and said, Lo, I see four men loose, walk- 
ing in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; 
and the aspect of the fourth is like a son of the 
gods. Then Nebuchadnezzar came near to the 
mouth of the burning fiery furnace: he spake and 
said, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, ye serv- 



106 The Humanity of the Christ 

ants of the Most High God, come forth, and come 
hither. Then Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego 
came forth out of the midst of the fire" (Dan. Ill: 
21, 24-26). 

Thus, and in other ways, did the Son of God of 
old manifest Himself unto the children of men, un- 
til at length, "when the fulness of the time came" 
(Gal. IV 14), "the Word became flesh, and dwelt 
among us" (John 1 114). But now, what never hap- 
pened before in the history of our race, He has been 
absent from our earth for nearly quite nineteen cen- 
turies, and a godless world fondly imagines, be- 
cause of His long-continued absence, that He is 
never again going to come back. Say they, * 'Where 
is the promise of His coming? for, from the day 
that the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as 
they were from the beginning of the creation" (II. 
Pet. 111:4). 

Dear hearer, are you like the moon in winter, all 
the more faithful in reflecting His light and glory, 
while He still delayeth His coming? 

Suppose that during some dark time in winter, 
when day after day, and week after week, the sun is 
wholly hid from view, the clouds should regularly 
clear away at night, and that then, not only once, 
nor simply the moon ; but that night after night the 
moon and all the planets should hang like black balls 



Christian Lights in the World 107 

in the heavens. Would we not have reason to fear 
that something far worse than an eclipse had hap- 
pened? that the sun failed any longer to supply 
the needed light? and that our whole solar system 
was being enveloped in perpetual darkness? 

Now this is precisely the way the world reasons 
about Christ, when Christians fail to give forth 
light. Just so long as the moon and the planets give 
forth their light by night, we know that the sun is 
behind the clouds by day. Just so does an unbeliev- 
ing world instinctively feel about the absent Christ, 
when His people let their light shine. It was so 
with the Jewish rulers. "Now when they beheld 
the boldness of Peter and John, and had perceived 
that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they 
marvelled; and they took knowledge of them, that 
they had been with Jesus" (Acts IV:i3). And even 
now men are often forced to say, "This is not of 
earth" 

But that isn't all by any means. Sun, moon, and 
stars pour forth their light, not for their own glori- 
fication; but to show forth the praises of their Cre- 
ator. 

"The heavens declare the glory of God; 
And the firmament (the expanse) showeth His 
handiwork. 



108 The Humanity of the Christ 

Day unto day uttereth speech, 

And night unto night showeth knowledge." 

(Ps. XIX: i -2.) 

Said our blessed Lord, "I seek not Mine own 
glory" (John VIII :5o). "I have glorified Thee on 
the earth" (Ch. XVII :i). And shall not the dis- 
ciple do as did his elder Brother and Lord? 
When the nations of old forgot God, Who made 
them, they turned and worshipped the host of 
heaven ; the creatures rather than the Creator, Who 
is blessed for evermore! Let us not give ourselves 
over to a like, aye, to a worse idolatry. 

Not for the purpose of self-adulation, or for the 
glorification of the Church: but to the glory of the 
Triune Jehovah are we to let our light shine. 
"Even so let your light shine before men" is the 
Master's command, "that they may see your good 
works, and glorify your Father Who is in heaven" 
(Matt. V:i6). As England's great dramatist has 
said: 

"Heaven doth with us, as we with torches do, 
Not light them for ourselves ; for if our virtues 
Did not go forth of us, 'twere all alike 
As if we had them not." 2 

"Holding forth the word of life." Without the 
light of the sun, how all nature would pale, and 
2 Shakespeare's Measure for Measure, Act. I, scene i. 



Christian Lights in the World 109 

sicken, and die! Everywhere light and life are al- 
most inseparably connected with each other. What 
a difference, for example, between plants in a dark, 
damp cellar, and those in the open air and sunlight. 

"In Him was life; and the life was the light of 
men" (John 1:4). How now may every disciple of 
Christ hold "forth the word of life"? Not neces- 
sarily by trying to play the orator. Were that so 
then, alas! many a modest and timid soul would 
find it utterly impossible to obey our Lord's injunc- 
tion. And then, too, many a humble-minded, faith- 
ful Sabbath-school teacher might as well at once step 
aside. And what a sudden collapse would befall 
many a prayer-meeting, which is a perennial source 
of blessing, if bereft of the moral and spiritual force 
of those, whose voices are never raised in public, to 
speak a word of exhortation, or even to lead in 
prayer. 

Every right-minded minister of the Gospel is 
ready to say with Moses, when told that Eldad and 
Medad prophesied in the camp, and when he was 
urged to forbid them, "Art thou jealous for my 
sake? would that all Jehovah's people were proph- 
ets, that Jehovah would put His Spirit upon 
them" (Num. XI 129). But God has not so or- 
dered. And it is well, for the sake of the great body 
of the Lord's people, that there are plenty of ways 



no The Humanity of the Christ 

in which they can "hold forth the word of life," 
without attempting the impossible. 

Happily for us all, the humble, devoted child of 
God may, in a thousand ways, let his or her light 
shine into the moral and spiritual darkness of this 
world, though knowing next to nothing of the graces 
of rhetoric, and though slow of speech. As some 
one has aptly said, "Christians are to be living 
Bibles." "Ye are our epistle," we read in II. Cor. 
111:2-3, "written in our hearts, known and read 
of all men, being made manifest that ye are an epis- 
tle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with 
ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in 
tables of stone, but in tables that are hearts of 
flesh." 

This it was that strengthened the apostle's con- 
fidence. And no minister of the Gospel need fear 
that his labors will be in vain in the Lord, or that 
souls will not be converted to God under his preach- 
ing, when his church is made up of such "living 
Bibles," even though nine-tenths of the communi- 
cants were deaf-mutes! 

And among such a people it will never be difficult 
to find, or to train up, those whose natural talents, 
as well as spiritual graces, will fit them to speak 
the suitable word of exhortation in the prayer-meet- 
ing, to aid in the religious instruction of the young, 



Christian Lights in the World ill 

and to help in every Christian work; for God be- 
stows all needed mental and spiritual gifts upon His 
Church, when she is in a condition to make a good 
use of these great blessings. It was not to a few iso- 
lated individuals, but to the church at Philippi as a 
whole, that the apostle Paul, under the guidance 
of the Holy Spirit, addressed these precious and 
all-comprehending words of promise, "And my God 
shall supply every need of yours according to His 
riches in glory in Christ Jesus" (Ch. IV 119). 

There was no lack of workers in apostolic times. 
And there were among these very many noble-mind- 
ed Christian women like Priscilla, the wife of 
Aquila, with whom Paul engaged in tentmaking 
when he first came to Corinth. They afterward 
sailed with him for Syria. "And they came to Eph- 
esus, and he left them there. . . . Now a certain 
Jew named Apollos, an Alexandrian by race, an 
eloquent man, came to Ephesus ; and he was mighty 
in the Scriptures. This man had been instructed 
in the way of the Lord ; and being fervent in spirit, 
he spake and taught accurately the things concern- 
ing Jesus, knowing only the baptism of John: and 
he began to speak boldly in the synagogue. But 
when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him 
unto them, and expounded unto him the way of 
God more accurately" (Acts XVIII 119, 24-26). It 



112 The Humanity of the Christ 

was in the home of these humble tentmakers that 
this eloquent man learned to become a most effi- 
cient preacher of the Gospel. Six times this godly 
couple are mentioned in the Acts and in Paul's epis- 
tles, always together, and three times the wife's 
name precedes that of her husband. Then Paul 
says, Rom. XVI :i, "I commend unto you Phoebe 
our sister, who is a servant of the church that is 
at Cenchreae." It is with her that he is supposed 
to have sent this letter to the saints at Rome. In the 
same chapter, at verse 12, he says, "Salute Try- 
phaena and Tryphosa, who labor in the Lord." 
These godly women, and a host of others, were all 
earnestly engaged in the work of the Lord. In this 
last respect the Church of our own day has but just 
begun fairly to imitate the example of the early 
Church. And yet the Church of God, when at all 
alive to her solemn responsibilities and wonderful 
privileges, has never altogether lacked earnest la- 
borers among the laity; men and women who have 
been the faithful and zealous helpers of the ministry 
of reconciliation. 

But, as already intimated, the text does not sim- 
ply, nor even specially, address itself to these. It 
speaks to all the true children of God; to all such 
it is a word of comfort and of exhortation. 

Sun, moon, and stars; these have no audible 



Christian Lights in the World 113 

"speech nor language." They do not address the 
outward ear. Yet, without all this, "their voice 
is . . . heard" (Ps. XIX 13). They "speak in 
reason's ear," and tell us of the power and the wis- 
dom, and the ever-watchful providence of Him Who 
sitteth on the throne of universal empire. 

Suppose, fellow-Christian, that you cannot do 
what the world calls a great thing. Let not that 
discourage you, as though, therefore, you could be 
of no use whatever in the Master's vineyard. Aye, 
beware lest you deceive yourself with the utterly 
false idea, that that will excuse you if you do noth- 
ing at all. 

Well may we address every professed follower of 
Christ in the language of a familiar hymn : 

"Hark! the voice of Jesus crying, — 

'Who will go and work to-day? 
Fields are white and harvest waiting; 

Who will bear the sheaves away?' 
Loud and strong the Master calleth, 

Rich reward He offers thee; 
Who will answer, gladly saying, 

'Here am I; send me, send me!' 

If you cannot cross the ocean, 
And the heathen lands explore, 

You can find the heathen nearer, 
You can help them at your door. 



H4 The Humanity of the Christ 

If you cannot give your thousands, 
You can give the widow's mite; 

And the least you do for Jesus, 
Will be precious in His sight* 

If you cannot speak like angels, 

If you cannot preach like Paul, 
You can tell the love of Jesus, 

You can say He died for all. 
If you cannot rouse the wicked 

With the judgment's dread alarms, 
You can lead the little children 

To the Savior's waiting arms. 

If you cannot be the watchman, 

Standing high on Zion's wall, 
Pointing out the path to heaven, 

Offering life and peace to all; 
With your prayers and with your bounties 

You can do what Heaven demands; 
You can be like faithful Aaron, 

Holding up the prophet's hands. 

If among the older people, 

You may not be apt to teach; 
Teed My lambs,' said Christ, our Shepherd, 

'Place the food within their reach.' 
And it may be that the children 

You have led with trembling hand, 
Will be found among your jewels, 

When you reach the better land. 



Christian Lights in the World 115 

Let none hear you idly saying, 

'There is nothing I can do,' 
While the souls of men are dying, 

And the Master calls for you. 
Take the task He gives you gladly, 

Let His work your pleasure be; 
Answer quickly when He calleth, 

'Here am I ; send me, send me !' " 3 

"Among whom ye are seen as lights in the world, 
holding forth the word of life." Aye, do what you 
can, and do all you can, by direct personal effort, by 
giving of your time, your talents, your means, for 
the cause of Christ, and for the salvation of the per- 
ishing: but remember, we beseech you, that in no 
other way can you so successfully hold "forth the 
word of life," as by holy living! 

Dear Christian hearers, the world judges the 
Gospel that is preached, aye, our blessed Lord Him- 
self, by the daily lives of His professed disciples. 
We read in Rom. 11:24, "For the name of God is 
blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you." 
And as corrupt Jewish conduct stood in the way of 
Paul's preaching, so now. How often do we hear 
it said, "That man had better keep still, people have 
no confidence in him." Or, "If somebody else had 
said the same thing, they would have felt very dif- 
ferently." Ah, yes! there is indeed a remarkable 
3 Rev. Daniel March. 



n6 The Humanity of the Christ 

difference in the effect which one man or another 
produces, even though they use almost the very same 
words. Why is it so? How can the riddle be 
solved? Well, that's easily done. It is the real or 
supposed character that stands back of the words, 
that endues them with power, or causes them to 
fall upon listless ears! 

Would you be really helpful, dear hearer, to the 
cause of Christ, and in saving souls? Then we say 
to you, first of all, Live the Gospel! And again 
we say, Live it! Let your life from day to day, 
in the family, in the social circle, in your worldly 
affairs, yea, everywhere, be radiant with the light 
of heaven. And thus you will, even in your silence, 
point men heavenward! "A proud Indian nabob, 
going along the streets one day, was attracted by 
the sounds proceeding from a missionary school, and 
he drew near to listen. The boys were reading the 
fifth chapter of Matthew. The eyes of the prince 
flashed with unwonted fire ; and when they had fin- 
ished their lesson, he exclaimed, 'Well, if you only 
live that chapter as well as you read it, I will never 
say another word against Christianity!' " What a 
striking comment on the apostolic exhortation, I. 
Pet. II: 1 2, "Having your behavior seemly among 
the Gentiles: that, wherein they speak against you 
as evil-doers, they may by your good works, which 



Christian Lights in the World 117 

they behold, glorify God in the day of visitation." 
Some one has well said, "Unless a man lives as high 
as he shouts, the less noise he makes the better." 
Ah ! the world has noise enough ; loud-mouthed pro- 
fessions and all that: but it is perishing for lack of 
light! 

How often it is said of this or that community, 
that the people have been preached to death. 
Preached to death ! Not at all. No community has 
ever been "preached to death," where the word 
heard has been reduced to practice, by the men and 
the women who received it as being in very deed the 
word of the living God. No! but moral and spir- 
itual stagnation and death have often been caused 
by the sad fact, that many who say, "Lord, Lord," 
have simply been hearers, and not doers, of the word. 

"The keeper of the lighthouse of Calais, France, 
was once boasting to a traveler of the brilliancy of 
his lantern, which can be seen ten leagues, that is, 
thirty miles, at sea, when the visitor said to him, 
'What if one of the lights should chance to go out?' 
'Never; impossible!' he cried, with a sort of conster- 
nation at the bare hypothesis. 'Sir,' said he, point- 
ing to the ocean, 'yonder, where nothing can be seen, 
there are ships going by to all parts of the world. 
If to-night one of my burners were out, within six 
months would come a letter — perhaps from India, 



n8 The Humanity of the Christ 

perhaps from America, perhaps from some place I 
never heard of — saying, that on such a night, at such 
an hour, the light of Calais burned dim, the watch- 
man neglected his post, and vessels were in danger. 
Ah, sir, sometimes in the dark nights in stormy 
weather I look out to sea, and I feel as if the eye of 
the whole world were looking at my light. Go 
out ? Burn dim ? Oh, never !' " Well has the nar- 
rator added, "Was the keeper of this lighthouse so 
vigilant; did he feel so deeply the importance of 
his work and its responsibility; and shall Christians 
neglect their light, and suffer it to grow dim — grow 
dim when, for need of its bright shining, some poor 
soul, struggling amid the waves of temptation, may 
be dashed upon the rocks of destruction? No! 
'Hold forth the word of life.' This is the way to 
save souls. 'Holding forth the word of life/ says 
the apostle. Why? 'That I may have whereof to 
glory in the day of Christ, that I did not run in 
vain, neither labored in vain.' " 

" 'For sadder sight the eye can know 
Than proud bark lost, or seaman's woe — 
The shipwreck of the soul!' " 

Let us then never forget, fellow-Christians, what 
that noble man of God of half a century ago, Philip 
Paul Bliss, has so beautifully sung: 






Christian Lights in the World 119 

'Brightly beams our Father's mercy 
From Hfs lighthouse evermore; 

But to us He gives the keeping 
Of the lights along the shore. 

Dark the night of sin has settled, 

Loud the angry billows roar; 
Eager eyes are watching, longing, 

For the lights along the shore. 

Trim your feeble lamp, my brother: 
Some poor sailor tempest-tost, 

Trying now to make the harbor, 
In the darkness may be lost! 

Let the lower lights be burning ! 

Send a gleam across the wave! 
Some poor fainting, struggling seaman, 

You may rescue, you may save!" 



WAS THERE ONLY ONE ASCENSION? 1 

\17"AS there only one ascension? And with well 
nigh united voice modern commentators re- 
spond, Certainly, only one. Well, if that be so, 
then where did the risen Christ go every time that 
He so mysteriously vanished from the sight of His 
followers? Where did He spend the greater part 
of His time, during those forty days that intervened 
between His resurrection and the hour when, in the 
full light of open day, He ascended in triumph from 
the mount of Olives ? And where did He stay dur- 
ing those forty nights? Not under the hospitable 
roof of the dear friends in Bethany, who would so 
gladly have sheltered that sacred form from the 
chilly blast, as they had so often done aforetime, 
when He had been wont to retire thither after the 
weariness and vexation, and the heart-aches, occa- 
sioned by the hardness of heart of scribe and Phari- 
see. And surely not, as erstwhile, in the days of 
His humiliation, did He spend His nights pleading 

*This address was prepared for and read to The 
Presbyterian Ministers' Association of Detroit and Vi- 
cinity, January 28, 191 8. 

120 



Was There Only One Ascension? 121 

with His heavenly Father for strength, to fulfill the 
task that He had given Him to accomplish, when 

"Cold mountains and the mid-night air 
Witnessed the fervor of" His "prayer." 

As it was manifestly not in the Divine purpose 
that the Risen One should continuously abide, as 
before, with man in the flesh, since He was no 
longer of this world, the question still presses for 
an answer, Where and with whom did He abide, 
when absent from the sight and presence of His dis- 
ciples ? Was there no region close at hand, to which 
He might at any time withdraw? And were there 
no suitable companions, to whose congenial society 
He might betake Himself? who would rejoice to 
flock around Him, to serve Him, and to adore Him 
with unmingled feelings of joy and ecstasy? 

When the son of Tolmai was first brought to 
Him He had declared, "Verily, verily, I say unto 
you, Ye shall see the heaven opened, and the an- 
gels of God ascending and descending upon the Son 
of Man" (John 1 151). All that is yet to be, but 
the question certainly seems pertinent, Why may not 
the resurrected Son of Man have done then, what 
His angelic messengers will do by and by? That 
"multitude of the heavenly host" who, in the vale 
of Bethlehem, raised their hallelujah at the time of 



122 The Humanity of the Christ 

His human birth, "saying, Glory to God in the 
highest, and on earth peace among men in whom 
He is well pleased" (Luke II 114) ; that multitudi- 
nous throng was never far away while He abode 
among men; nor even now are they far removed 
from our earth, since they are "all ministering spir- 
its, sent forth to do service for the sake of them 
that shall inherit salvation" (Heb. 1 114). And we 
are assured by the Master Himself, that the little 
ones that believe upon Him do all have their guard- 
ian angels, who, "in heaven ... do always behold 
the face of" His "Father Who is in heaven" (Matt. 
XVIII :i 1 ). Five times in the epistle to the 
Ephesians does the Holy Spirit speak to us of the 
heavenly places, or regions, and that in such a way 
as indicating, and in some cases positively asserting, 
that they are thronged by angelic potencies of vari- 
ous degrees of rank and power. And it is as plainly 
implied, asserted indeed, that the resurrected and 
glorified saints are likewise to become inhabitants of 
those blissful regions. Nay more, it is even declared 
that in spirit they are already as good as there. 
"But God, being rich in mercy, . . . raised us up 
with Him," i. e., "with Christ," "and made us to 
sit with Him in the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus" 
(Eph. 11:4, 6). And in full accord with all this 
is the declaration of our Lord, that "they that are 



Was There Only One Ascension? 123 

accounted worthy to attain to that world, and the 
resurrection from" among "the dead," will be "equal 
unto the angels" (Luke XX .-35-36). 

But it is high time that we turn to the few 
passages of Scripture, which are the crucial texts in 
the present discussion. Chiefly, of course, our at- 
tention needs to be concentrated upon the interview 
of our Lord with her "from whom seven demons 
had gone out" (Luke VIII :2), and to whom, as 
Mark informs us, "He appeared first" (Ch. XVI: 

9). 

In regard to the great masters of literature the 
college student has been told to "verify his referen- 
ces." Well, that advice is certainly infinitely more 
in place in regard to the writings of men who spoke 
as they were moved, as their minds were borne 
along, by the Spirit of the living God. And is it not 
a lamentable fact, that the ministry of the present 
day, seems to a great extent supremely satisfied with 
itself, even though untold numbers never make the 
slightest effort to ascertain for themselves what is 
the mind of the Spirit? And in regard to the mat- 
ter in hand, when it becomes a simple duty to ex- 
pose, what we believe to be the utterly erroneous 
interpretations that have been put upon this, and 
upon certain related passages — especially too when 
one cannot but remember that these at times 



124 The Humanity of the Christ 

strangely absurd, and even grotesque interpretations, 
have been foisted upon these Scriptures by men often 
of the rarest excellence, whose learning and devout 
spirit make one glad to sit at their feet — it is well to 
bear in mind what the Rev. Edward Riches de Le- 
vante says, in his Prolegomenon to that work of 
rare excellence, his Biblia Hexaglotta, anent the 
Greek text of the New Testament, "In these days 
of earnest study, bold criticism, and wild specula- 
tion, it behooves a man to look, pause, reflect, and 
not to leap before he is tolerably sure of his ground; 
not to jump at the conclusions of others, however 
great and learned, before he himself, however hum- 
ble and unlearned, has reflected and examined the 
position." 

Let us now turn to John XXm-13. "But Mary 
was standing without at the tomb weeping: so, as 
she wept, she stooped and looked into the tomb; 
and she beholdeth two angels in white sitting, one at 
the head, and one at the feet, where the body of 
Jesus had lain. And they say unto her, Woman, 
why weepest thou? She saith unto them, Because 
they have taken away my Lord, and I know not 
where they have laid Him." 

Finely does the Rev. Henry Blunt, of the An- 
glican Church, remark as to this interview between 
Mary Magdalene and the angels, "What a remark- 



Was There Only One Ascension? 125 

able evidence of the intensity of Mary's grief is 
afforded by the fact, that even a vision of angels 
does not interrupt it! She is so completely absorbed 
by this one feeling, that there is no surprise, no 
symptom of astonishment; she answers the angelic 
speaker as if she had conversed with angels all her 
life." 2 

"When she had thus said, she turned herself 
back, and beholdeth Jesus standing, and knew not 
that it was Jesus. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, 
why weepest thou? whom seekest thou? She, sup- 
posing Him to be the gardener, saith unto Him, Sir, 
if thou hast taken Him away, tell we where thou 
hast laid Him, and I will take Him away. Jesus 
saith unto her, Mary. She turneth herself, and 
saith unto Him in Hebrew, Rabboni; which is to 
say, Teacher. Jesus saith unto her, Touch Me not: 
for I am not yet ascended unto the Father: but go 
unto My brethren, and say to them, I ascend unto 
My Father and your Father, and My God and 
your God. Mary Magdalene cometh and telleth 
the disciples, I have seen the Lord; and that He 
had said these things unto her" (v's 14-18). 

Alas! that so much and such amazing ingenuity 
should have been expended, not in elucidating and 
clarifying for the beclouded minds of the children 

a Lectures on the Life of Christ, p. 358. 



126 The Humanity of the Christ 

of men, this beautifully simple and charming ac- 
count of so sublime and touching an interview, be- 
tween the Conqueror of death and Hades, "the Liv- 
ing One," Who could thenceforth say of Himself, 
"I was dead, and behold, I am alive for evermore" 
(Rev. I:i8), and this marvelous trophy of His vic- 
torious grace. And that too when a rational ex- 
planation lies close at hand; an explanation, more- 
over, which at once removes from it all seeming 
mysticism, and brings the whole scene before us in 
all its native grandeur and loveliness. But, as has 
so often happened, man is not prepared to accept 
the Word of God with the simplicity of a little 
child. He must needs philosophise, and search out 
some fanciful and hidden meaning, quite foreign to 
the plain, obvious import of the language, something 
recondite and out of the way; and scarce anywhere 
else is all this more signally exemplified than in re- 
gard to the passage before us. 

The excellent Bishop Ellicott, in his truly learned 
"Hulsean Lectures for the Year 1859," presents 
this extraordinary medley on the subject, "Amaze- 
ment, hope, belief, conviction, all, in their fullest 
measure, burst, as it were, upon her soul. With the 
one word Rabboni, and, as the context leads us to 
think, with some gesture of overwhelming and be- 
wildered joy, she turns round, as if to satisfy her- 



Was There Only One Ascension? 127 

self, not only by the eye and ear, but by the touch 
of the clasping hand, that it was indeed He Himself, 
no mere heaven-sent form, but her Teacher and De- 
liverer, Whose feet she had been permitted to fol- 
low over the hills of Galilee, Whose power had res- 
cued her, Whose redeeming blood she had seen fall- 
ing on the very ground nigh to which she was then 
standing. Yes, her outstretched hand shall assure 
her that it is her Lord!" 

Oh! good bishop do leave her alone with her 
Lord! But no, not content to do that he goes 
right on, "But it must not be; relations are now 
solemnly changed. That holy body is the resurrec- 
tion body of the ascending Lord ; the eager touch of 
a merely earthly love is now more than ever un- 
becoming and unmeet. With mysterious words, full 
of holy dignity and majesty, yet at the same time 
of most tenderly implied consolation, the Lord bids 
her refrain. The time indeed will come when, 
under higher relations, love eager and demonstrative 
as that now shown to the risen, may hereafter un- 
forbiddingly direct itself to the ascended Lord. But 
that time is not now. Still love devoted and true as 
that displayed by Mary of Magdala shall not be 
left unblessed. To her is vouchsafed the privilege 
of being the first mortal preacher of the risen Lord. 
From her lips is it that even apostles are to learn, 



128 The Humanity of the Christ 

not only that the resurrection is past, but that the 
ascension is begun, and that He, Who is not 
ashamed to call them brethren, is now ascending to 
His Father and to their Father, and to His God 
and their God." And yet he adds, with almost the 
very next breath, and that without a blush, or the 
least indication of surprise, or even a word of ex- 
planation, "Very shortly, perhaps, after Mary Mag- 
dalene had left the apostles, the other ministering 
women, who had brought the first tidings to the 
apostles, are permitted to meet their Lord face to 
face, yes, and to clasp the holy feet, before which 
they had at once fallen in trembling and believing 
adoration. They saw, they believed, they touched, 
and they worshiped." In speaking of "the exact 
feeling which led to their embracing the Lord's 
feet," he rightly concludes that it proceeded "from 
a reverential love that evinced itself in supplicating 
adoration." 

And it may well be asked, Was it because Mary's 
love for the Master, though its manifestation would 
be all right just as soon as He was safe in heaven, 
was so ardent, that she alone of all His followers 
must not be allowed to touch Him? Pitifully self- 
contradictory reasoning! And one might almost in- 
dignantly inquire, if that was the reward for those 
years of faithful ministering to the daily wants of 



Was There Only One Ascension? 129 

Him, Who had declared that even the giving of a 
cup of cold water in His name, and out of love for 
Him, should "in no wise lose" its "reward" (Matt. 
X:42) ? But by what authority does any one pre- 
sume to say that the love of this noble, self-denying, 
consecrated, holy woman, — upon whose pure and 
spotless character none but the basest and most 
groundless aspersions have ever been cast, — that her 
love was of such a sort, so much more mixed with a 
base earthly alloy, than that of any other follower 
of the Savior, that she alone must not be allowed to 
touch even the hem of His garment? 3 

3 In The Christian Worker's Magazine for August, 1917, 
there appeared an excellent article by the Rev. Dr. J. 
Glentworth Butler, copied from The Herald and Pres- 
byter, of Cincinnati, showing that the painters of the 
Middle Ages are responsible for the attempt to try and 
identify Mary Magdalene with the "woman who was 
... a sinner" (Luke VII 137), who anointed the Savior's 
feet at the house of Simon the Pharisee. As Dr. Butler 
clearly shows, the assumption is absolutely without foun- 
dation. To persist, as so many do to this day, to call 
these places of refuge for fallen women, Magdalen hos- 
pitals, is a palpable outrage against one of the purest 
characters mentioned in Holy Writ! 

But, as it seems to us, another most remarkable fact 
should be stated in this connection; a fact which serves 
to show how our gracious God, Who loves unsullied 
womanhood, has always sought to shield her from the 
assaults of Satan, and from man's tyranny and scurrilous 



130 The Humanity of the Christ 

Evidently Bishop Ellicott, like a host of other 
writers, quite fails to understand the rationale of 
this remarkable interview, for he continues, 
"Though the use of the present anabaino may be 
regarded as ethical } i. e., as indicating what was 
soon and certainly to take place, it seems much more 
simple to regard it as temporal, — as indicating a 
process which had in fact already begun. The ex- 
treme view of this text," he adds, "as indicating 
that an ascension of our Lord took place on the 
same day that He rose ( ... ), is, it is needless to 
say, plainly to be rejected, as inconsistent with Acts 
1:3, an d numerous other passages in all the four 
Gospels." Perhaps, however, some Scripture evi- 
dence may be adduced before this paper is con- 
cluded, showing that the good Bishop had little 
occasion to dismiss that idea so summarily. 

abuse, namely this: — The three sinful women whom our 
blessed Lord rescued from a life of shame, are every one 
left nameless! The evangelists were kept from mention- 
ing the name of any one of them. See Luke VII ; John 
IV; John VIII. Among the redeemed, in "the general 
assembly and church of the firstborn, who are enrolled 
in heaven, ... the spirits of just men made perfect" 
(Heb. XII 123), they have doubtless long since had "a new 
name" (Rev. II 117) : but the Spirit of God did not design 
that their earthly names should be bandied about by the 
vile and infamous! 



Was There Only One Ascension? 131 

It will not be out of place, before taking leave 
of our noble friend, to quote what he feels forced 
to admit anent the belated Festival of the Ascen- 
sion, viz., to quote his exact language, "how com- 
paratively little the ascension of our Lord is dwelt 
upon by the early writers, compared with their ref- 
erences to the resurrection. And it may also be ob- 
served," he adds, "that the special festival, though 
undoubtedly of great antiquity, . . . and certainly 
regarded in the fourth century as one of the great 
festivals, ... is still not alluded to by any of the 
earliest writers, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Clement 
of Alexandria, and Cyprian, and is not included in 
the list of festivals enumerated by Origin. . . . 
The preaching of the apostles was pre-eminently the 
resurrection of Christ (Acts 111:3, IV:33 et al.), 
as that which included in it everything besides; it 
was from this that the early Church derived all its 
fullest grounds of assurance." * 

It would have been well if the Church had always 
followed that apostolic and primitive example! But, 
alas! even so-called Protestantism has, in our day, 
largely gone festival-mad; and, as a legitimate and 
inevitable result, — as has always been the case in 
Roman Catholic countries, — the Heaven-appointed 
weekly day of rest is fast becoming a mere holiday, 

* Historical Lectures, p. 338, note 1. 



132 The Humanity of the Christ 

and thus is human tradition once again making "void 
the word of God" (Matt. XV :6). 

But we must pass on. And so let us briefly note 
certain other strange constructions that have been 
put upon this remarkable interview. 

Says that great German commentator, Johann 
Peter Lange, "We can infer from that which fol- 
lows that she meantime has fallen at His feet and 
embraced them, like those women in Matt. 
XXVIII :g, and the woman that was a sinner, Luke 
VII :39." To this his American translator, the late 
Prof. Philip Schaff, adds, that in explaining our 
Lord's admonition that she must not touch Him, 
we must have reference to His summons to Thomas 
in verse 27, and to the disciples in Luke XXIV 139. 
"It is therefore," he says, "not the act of touching 
as such, which the Lord reproves, but the animus 
or motive of Mary" (page 610). 

According to many others it meant that "Jesus 
demanded a greater reverence for His body, now 
that it had become divine." — Chrysostom, Erasmus, 
et al. 

One writer (Amnon) says, "Jesus desired to 
spare her the touching of one Levitically unclean." 
Another (Paulus) "His wounds still pained Him, 
therefore touching Him would have hurt Him." 
And yet others, "Because the new, glorious cor- 



Was There Only One Ascension? 133 

poreality of Jesus was still so tender as to shun 
every vigorous grasp" ( Schleiermacher, Olshausen). 
Says Weisse, "He was still bodiless, a mere spiritual 
apparition, a ghost." Hilgenfelt, "He as yet ap- 
peared only as a mere man, being not yet reunited 
to the Logos, and therefore adoration was unsea- 
sonable." But, as has been well said, "afterwards 
He allowed Himself to be called by Thomas, 'My 
Lord and my God.' " 

The illustrious John Calvin says that our Lord's 
"state of resurrection would not be full and com- 
plete, until He should sit down in heaven at the 
right hand of the Father; and, therefore, that the 
women did wrong in satisfying themselves with 
nothing more than the half of His resurrection, 
and desiring to enjoy His presence in the world." 
Says Meyer, "Handle Me not for the purpose of 
examining whether it be really Myself in the body, 
or My glorified spirit." "Hold Me not as though 
we were in the perfection of the existence of that 
world beyond us, for I am not yet ascended, etc., 
to say nothing of thyself" (Lange, Hofmann, Lut- 
hardt, Tholuck, et al. ) . 

"Tarry not with Me, but make haste and dis- 
charge the message; time enough later for handling, 
greeting, holding" (Beza, Calovius, Bengel). "Seek 
not thy comfort in My present appearance by ter- 



134 The Humanity of the Christ 

restrial contact, but by spiritual communion" (Are- 
tius, Grotius, Neander, and others). 

Says the learned Dean Alford, "She believed 
she had now gotten Him again, never to be parted 
from Him. This gesture He reproved as unsuited 
to the time, and the nature of His present appear- 
ance. 'Do not thus — for I am not yet restored 
fully to you in body — I have yet to ascend to the 
Father.' This implies in the background another 
and truer touching when He should have ascended 
to the Father." Wordsworth would have us read, 
"'Cleave not to Me in My bodily appearance; do 
not touch Me carnally, but learn to touch Me spir- 
itually.' When the power of the bodily touch ends, 
then the spiritual touch begins, and that touch most 
honors Christ and profits us." Hengstenberg con- 
jectures that Mary, in the mistaken notion that the 
partition wall between Christ and her had now 
fallen, desired to embrace Him : this the Lord with- 
stood, because the process of glorification was not 
yet completed, and the separation still continued in 
part." Says that eminent Swiss writer, Frederick 
L. Godet, "To touch in order to enjoy, to attach 
one's self to some one; this is not the moment to 
attach yourself to Me, as I am before you in My 
human individuality." 

Dean Farrar tells us that Mary, having "appar- 



Was There Only One Ascension? 135 

ently tried to clasp His feet, or the hem of His 
garment, . . . cried . . . 'Rabboni!' . . . and then 
remained speechless with her transport." And then 
the learned man proceeds, " 'Cling not to Me,' He 
exclaimed, 'for not yet have I ascended to the 
Father; but go,' etc. Awe-struck, she hasted to 
obey. She repeated to them that solemn message 
— and through all future ages has thrilled that first 
utterance, which made on the minds of those who 
heard it so indelible an impression — I have seen the 
Lord." 

"Nor was her testimony unsupported. Jesus met 
the other women also, and said to them, 'All hail!' 
Terror mingled with their emotion, as they clasped 
His feet. 'Fear not,' He said to them; 'go, bid 
My brethren that they depart into Galilee, and 
there shall they see Me.' " {Life of Christ, pp. 

456-4570 

He seems utterly unconscious as to the strangely 
self-contradictory treatment, from his point of view, 
of Mary and of the other women by our Lord. 

We quote from the Rev. Albert Barnes, "This 
passage has given rise to a variety of interpreta- 
tions. Jesus required from Thomas to touch Him, 
. . . and it has been difficult to ascertain why He 
forbids this now to Mary. The reason why He 
directed Thomas to do this was, that He doubted 



136 The Humanity of the Christ 

whether He had been restored to life. Mary did 
not doubt that. The reason why He forbade her 
to touch Him now, is to be sought in the circum- 
stances of the case." And again, " 'Do not delay 
here. Other opportunities will yet be afforded to 
see Me. I have not yet ascended, that is, I am not 
about to ascend immediately, but shall remain yet 
on earth to afford opportunity to My disciples to 
enjoy My presence.' From Matt. XXVIII :g it 
appears that the women when they met Jesus, held 
Him by the feet and worshiped Him. This species 
of adoration it was probably the intention of Mary 
to offer, and this, at that time, Jesus forbade, and 
directed her to go at once and give His disciples no- 
tice that He had risen." (Notes on the Gospels, 

P. 389.) 

A former pastor of the First Congregational 
church of Detroit, Zachary Eddy, D.D., in his ex- 
cellent Life of Christ, says, at page 733, that the 
words "All hail!" addressed to the other women, 
"were His first words after His resurrection," and 
adds that "they reverently approached Him; . . . 
held Him by the feet; . . . worshiped Him." And 
then he actually declares, on page 735, that when 
Mary Magdalene, in the ecstasy of her love, faith, 
and joy, "struggles to embrace His feet;" and 
"would renew the former intercourse, . . . He 



Was There Only One Ascension? 137 

shrinks away from contact with her." But why? 
Because, forsooth, "she clings to the humanity of 
His humiliation." 

Says Cunningham Geikie, D.D., " 'Rabboni,' 
said she, in the country tongue they both loved so 
well — My Teacher! and was about to fall on His 
neck in uncontrollable emotion. 

" 'Touch Me not,' said He, drawing back, 'for 
I have not yet ascended to the Father, but go to 
My brethren, and say to them, I ascend.' . . . 

"Meanwhile the other women had come near, and 
hearing and seeing what had passed, kneeled in 
lowly worship. As they approached, Jesus greeted 
them with the salutation they had, doubtless, often 
heard from His lips — 'All hail' — and the sight of 
Mary adoring Him, left them no question of its 
being their Lord. He had withheld Mary from 
any approach to the tender freedom of former days, 
but He now stood still while the lowly band, Mary 
doubtless among them, held Him by the feet, and 
did Him lowliest reverence. Then, as they kneeled, 
came the words, grateful to their hearts, 'Be not 
afraid! Go, tell My brethren to go into Galilee, 
and they will see Me there.' 

"So saying, He was gone." 

A more pitiful and extraordinary intellectual 
somersault, on the part of so excellent and able a 



138 The Humanity of the Christ 

scholar, is scarcely conceivable ! The thrilling mes- 
sage, which our Lord entrusted to Mary Magda- 
lene, is thus absolutely robbed of all its solemn im- 
port. And what then becomes of the evangelist 
Mark's explicit statement, that "He appeared first 
to Mary Magdalene," if the other women were 
there the very next minute? And what need was 
there of commanding her to tell the disciples, that 
one of these days He was going to return to the 
Father, when, in the very next breath almost, He 
ordered her and the other women to tell them to 
meet Him in Galilee? If that were all, then one 
might reverently wonder why the Savior did not de- 
liver the earlier message Himself, rather than en- 
trust it even to this devoted woman. 

Isaac Da Costa, an eminent Dutch poet and theo- 
logian, in his truly excellent Bijbellezingen, remarks 
that, by saying, "For I have not yet ascended to 
My Father," the Lord mollified and explained His 
previous word, as meaning, Let it suffice you for 
this time to have seen Me. I have not yet de- 
parted for good, and for some time I am still com- 
ing back to you. Forsooth, heaven and earth had 
now become one realm, and unseen He ascended and 
descended as often as it suited His purposes. (Ze- 
vende Deel, pp. 363 and 365.) But even Da Costa 
has not a word to say as to why the Lord thus came 



Was There Only One Ascension? 139 

and went, or whether He did immediately ascend 
to the Father. 

Suffer a brief remark in passing. To talk, as do 
some of the writers above quoted, about a spiritual 
touching by faith, after the Lord should have as- 
cended to heaven, as of more importance, is, under 
the circumstances, the sheerest nonsense, and is like 
flying in the very face of Holy Writ. It was by 
means of the most manifold, clear, and infallible 
"proofs," and that "by the space of forty days" 
(Acts 1:3), that our Lord demonstrated the ab- 
solute certainty of His bodily resurrection, and so 
He "was declared to be the Son of God with power, 
according to the Spirit of holiness, by" His "resur- 
rection from" among "the dead" (Rom. 1:4). The 
aged apostle John glories in this thrice-blessed fact. 
"That which we have heard, that which we have 
seen with our eyes, that which we beheld, and our 
hands handled, concerning the Word of life" (I. 
John I:i). Everything was here at stake, and 
hence Paul cries out, "If Christ hath not been 
raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins!" 
(I. Cor. XV:i7). Little wonder is it that the 
enemies of the truth are for ever trying to get rid 
of, or to obscure, this transcendently amazing fact 
that our Lord rose bodily from the tomb! But, as 
Da Costa has well said, In order that the apostles 



140 The Humanity of the Christ 

might be able to proclaim the Gospel to the na- 
tions, it was absolutely needful that they be eye- 
and ear-witnesses of the Lord's resurrection, by see- 
ing Him, and communing with Him, after He had 
risen. (Ibid., p. 346.) 

"A Commentary on the Holy Bible by various 
writers, edited by the Rev. J. R. Dummelow, M.A., 
of Queen's College, Cambridge," published in 191 5 
by the Macmillan Company, has the following, 
" 'Touch Me not,' etc. I have not come to renew 
the old intimacy, but am on the point of returning 
to My Father. When I am enthroned in heaven, 
you shall touch Me once more, not, however, with 
the physical touch of your hands, but with the spir- 
itual touch of a living faith. 'I ascend,' viz., after 
forty days." This author adds, however, "But many 
recent writers maintain that our Lord ascended im- 
mediately after the Resurrection, that He was in 
heaven during the forty days of earthly manifesta- 
tion, and that the event called the Ascension (Acts. 
I.) was only His final farewell to the disciples; 
not His entry into glory." Who these "recent writ- 
ers" are I have thus far tried in vain to discover. 

As to the direction to Mary Magdalene to go to 
His brethren, a very few additional quotations may 
not be out of place. 

"He means her to gather from this that His ap- 



Was There Only One Ascension? 141 

pearance is not as yet a super-terrestrial and glori- 
fied one. Glorification, however, does not put an 
end to the brotherly feeling" (Meyer). "The word 
is designed to speak peace to the disciples concern- 
ing their flight" (Bengel). "It is the intimation 
of the relationship of reconciliation" (Apollinaris, 
Luther, Bucer). 

" 'I ascend' . . . The immanent ascension spoken 
of as already present, since He even now finds Him- 
self in the new heavenly state, or transition state, 
which is the condition of ascension. . . . Thus is 
Magdalene made the first Evangelist of the resur- 
rection to the apostolic circle itself, the Lord having 
also first appeared to her" (Lange, Commentary, 
pp. 610-61 1 ). 

But let this remarkably strange hotchpotch suf- 
fice by way of introduction. 

"Jesus saith unto her, Mary. She turned her- 
self, and saith unto Him in Hebrew, Rabboni; 
which is to say, Teacher!" Literally, My Teacher! 
"Jesus saith unto her, Touch Me not; for I am not 
yet ascended unto the Father: but go unto My 
brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto My 
Father and your Father, and My God and your 
God. Mary Magdalene cometh and telleth the dis- 
ciples, I have seen the Lord; and that He had said 
these things unto her" (John XX: 16-18). 



142 The Humanity of the Christ 

We remark, first of all, that the common inter- 
pretation of our Lord's message to the disciples, as 
given to Mary Magdalene, changes both the perfect 
and the present tense of the Greek verb ANA- 
BAINO into the future, and that too without the 
slightest warrant from Scripture itself, and, as we 
will venture to add, without any possible occasion 
for so doing, since all that is needed to make the 
Savior's meaning perfectly clear, and easily under- 
stood as well, even by a little child, is for scholars 
to cease trying to foist their vain conjectures upon 
the plain and positive declarations of Holy Writ. 

Another criticism should be added right here. 
There is no warrant whatever for supposing that 
the Greek verb APTOMAI means anything more 
than simply to touch. Throughout the Gospels it 
means just that and nothing more. See, for exam- 
ple, such passages as Matt. VIII 13, 15; IX 129; 
XVII:7; Mark III:io; V:27, 28, 30, 31; VI 156; 
VII 133; Luke VII :i4. 

Writes the apostle Paul to the Hebrew Chris- 
tians, "Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of a 
heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High 
Priest of our confession, even Jesus" (Heb. Ill :i ). 
He is not only our Prophet, and our coming King, 
but also our eternal High Priest. Once a year, on 
the great day of atonement, the high priest of the 



Was There Only One Ascension? 143 

Mosaic economy entered into the holy of holies in 
the tabernacle, or rather, as our Revised Version 
tells us, in the "Tent of Meeting," and from the 
days of Solomon, into the most holy place in the 
temple, there to meet with the God of Israel. (See 
Lev. XVI :2, 34.) "But into the second the high 
priest alone, once in the year, not without blood, 
which he offereth for himself, and for the errors of 
the people" (Heb. IX 7). 

On that great day of expiation no one else, not 
even of the house of Aaron, was allowed to enter 
the tabernacle with him, until after he had pre- 
sented himself, with the blood of atonement, in the 
presence of Jehovah. See Lev. XVI: 17. 

Even so our blessed Redeemer, as the great High 
Priest of the people of God, must not only lay down 
His life for the sheep that the Father had given 
Him; but must, moreover, present the completed 
offering in the presence of God the Father; not, as 
the Holy Spirit expressly declares in Hebrews IX, 
by entering "into a holy place made with hands, 
. . . but into heaven itself, now to appear before 
the face of God for us" (v. 24). "But Christ hav- 
ing come a High Priest of the good things to come, 
through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, 
not made with hands, that is to say, not of this 
creation, nor yet through the blood of goats and 



144 The Humanity of the Christ 

calves, but through His own blood, entered in once 
for all into the holy place, having obtained eternal 
redemption" (v's 11-12). 

It was, as we believe, in fulfillment of His com- 
mission as our great High Priest, of which the 
Hebrew high priest of a dispensation which was 
now to come to an end, was more especially a type 
in the solemn transactions of the great day of atone- 
ment, that the risen Christ must, first of all, present 
the offering, which He had made for guilty man on 
Golgotha's cross, to God the Father in the heavenly 
tabernacle. 

Until the sacrifice had first been presented to the 
Father, sinful man must not touch that sacred body 
which had been bruised for us. And yet, even as 
the people of old, while standing in the outer courts, 
may have caught some glimpse of the high priest ere 
he entered the holiest of all, to appear in the im- 
mediate presence of Jehovah, even so our Lord suf- 
fered His people, in the person of Mary Magdalene, 
to catch a momentary glimpse of Himself, ere He 
ascended to His Father and to their Father, to His 
God and to their God. 

But why did He choose Mary Magdalene for so 
exalted a privilege? We know not, and yet can- 
not but believe that that profound scholar, Judge 



Was There Only One Ascension? 145 

Joel Jones, LL.D., is quite correct in supposing that 
she was singled out for this purpose, because she 
was such a signal proof of our Lord's complete mas- 
tery, as the Son of Man, over the powers of dark- 
ness. It is certainly noteworthy that the evangelists 
always mention her by way of pre-eminence, when- 
ever they speak of the women who so devotedly fol- 
lowed the Savior, and ministered to His needs. Not 
only so, but both Mark and Luke call special at- 
tention to the fact, that it was out of her that the 
Lord Jesus had cast seven demons. I. John 111:8 
reads, "To this end was the Son of God manifested, 
that He might destroy the works of the Devil." 
And so we can but surmise, where positive asser- 
tion would be altogether out of place, that it may 
have been in the Divine purpose, that the risen 
Christ, just as He was on the point of ascending, 
to present to the Father the offering He had made 
for "our sins, in His body upon the tree" (I. Pet. 
11:24), should thus momentarily reveal Himself to 
this extraordinary ensample of the power of that vic- 
torious grace, that during all the ages would rescue 
the lost children of men from the power of the 
Devil. May be that was why He suffered one, 
whom He had snatched from the very jaws of hell, 
to see Him ere He presented the offering He had 



146 The Humanity of the Christ 

made on the cross in the holy of holies in the heav- 
enly places. 5 

On His return from the Father He was ready, 
like the high priest of old, to show Himself openly 
to His people, and ready as well to give them the 
amplest proof, by being handled by them, and by 
even eating and drinking in their presence, that He 
was indeed the very same Jesus of Nazareth, Who 
had gone "about doing good" (Acts X:38), to 
Whose wonderful teachings they had so often lis- 
tened, and of Whose marvelous signs and wonders 
they had been eye-witnesses. 

If the question be asked, How could all this have 
taken place in the little space of time that inter- 
vened between our Lord's interview with Mary 
Magdalene and the meeting with the women men- 
tioned in Matthew XXVIII, we may well ask, 
What were earthly measurements of time and space 
to Him, to Whose resurrected body barred and 
bolted doors presented not the slightest hindrance, 
whenever He chose to come in or to go out? The 
prophet Daniel presented his prayers and supplica- 
tions before Jehovah his God, and while he "was 
speaking in prayer, the man Gabriel," who stands 
"in the presence of God" (Luke I:ig), "being 

6 Jesus and the Coming Glory; or, Notes on Scripture, 
pp. 473-475- 



Was There Only One Ascentionf 147 

caused to fly swiftly, touched" him "about the time 
of the evening oblation" (Dan. IX:2i). How long 
did it take the angel to descend from before the 
throne of God to this earth? Let Gabriel himself 
tell us. "At the beginning of thy supplication," 
said he to Daniel, "the commandment went forth, 
and I am come to tell thee" (v. 23). Says the 
apostle, Heb. IV 114, "Having then a great High 
Priest, Who hath passed through the heavens, Jesus 
the Son of God." And how far was the distance 
from earth to the highest heavens for Him, of 
Whom the Father Almighty has said, "And let all 
the angels of God worship Him" (Heb. 1:6) ? Alas 
for us, blind mortals, when we undertake to meas- 
ure heaven's latitudes and longitudes by the arith- 
metic of earth! 

That same evening, while the disciples were met 
together behind doors carefully shut, "for fear of 
the Jews" (John XX: 19), all of a sudden they be- 
held their beloved Master standing in their midst. 
And please note that He no longer addresses them 
as an inhabitant of this earth, but as one Who, even 
as Man, already belongs to another sphere. "And 
He said unto them, These are My words which I 
spake unto you, while I was yet with you" (Luke 
XXIV 144). Put such language as that in the 
mouth even of His friend Lazarus, who had "been 



148 The Humanity of the Christ 

dead four days" (John XI 129), and you perceive 
at once how incongruous and absurd it would have 
been for him to talk after that fashion. But the 
Christ of God had ceased to have His permanent 
abode on earth. Henceforth He simply came and 
went as a Visitor to our globe, of which He will 
only gain complete possession when He comes a 
second time, in the glory of His Father, with the 
angels of His power, and with His glorified saints, 

"To proclaim ... the day of vengeance of our 

God;" (Is. LXI:2.) 

"To execute . . . the judgment written." 

(Ps. CXLIX: 9 .) 

But to resume. Our Lord had said to the Father, 
on the night of His betrayal, "While I was with 
them, I kept them in Thy name which Thou hast 
given Me: and I guarded them" (John XVII :i2). 
To His disciples He had said, that same evening, 
"I will pray the Father, and He shall give you 
another Comforter, that He may be with you for 
ever" (Ch. XIV: 16). He, moreover, at the same 
time assured them, that the blessed Comforter, the 
Spirit of truth, could not come to do His special 
work for them, until after He Himself had taken 
His departure, and had returned to the Father. 
Not only so, but He had likewise given them the 






Was There Only One Ascension? 149 

definite assurance, that while the world should be- 
hold Him no more, they should see Him (v. 19). 
"Now I go unto Him that sent Me" (Ch. XVI: 
5). "I go to the Father, and ye behold Me no 
more" (v. 10). "A little while, and ye behold Me 
no more; and again a little while, and ye shall see 
Me" (v. 16). "Do ye inquire among yourselves 
concerning this, that I said, A little while, and ye 
behold Me not, and again a little while, and ye 
shall see Me?" "Verily, verily, I say unto 
you, that ye shall weep and lament; ... ye 
shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned 
into joy. . . .Ye therefore now have sorrow: but I 
will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and 
your joy no one taketh away from you" (v's 19, 20, 
22). Their sorrow was then already coming upon 
them ; it absolutely overwhelmed them as their loved 
Teacher was being crucified, like a common male- 
factor, between two highway robbers. But the ful- 
ness of their joy came to them on the very day 
when He rose from among the dead, when they 
saw Him again, and in times of peril, persecution, 
or death, for Jesus' sake, it never left them! And 
yet our Lord had told them that they should not 
see Him, until after He had first gone to the 
Father. What a joyous message then was it that 
He sent to them, when about to ascend to the 



150 The Humanity of the Christ 

Father, "I ascend unto My Father and your Father, 
and My God and your God." It meant that very 
soon He would return to them, when He would 
banish for ever their sorrow of heart ! 

But how did He make sure to them the perpe- 
tuity of their joy from that day on? The only ra- 
tional answer, we submit, is that He at once com- 
mitted them to the keeping power of the Holy 
Spirit, Whose coming as their perpetual Comforter 
he had told them, could not take place until He 
Himself had first gone to the Father. He had now 
returned from the Father, and therefore, on the 
very evening of His resurrection, "He breathed on 
them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy 
Spirit." But let us refresh our minds by giving this 
word of committal its proper setting. "When there- 
fore it was evening, on that day, the first day of 
the week, and when the doors were shut where the 
disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and 
stood in the midst, and saith unto them, Peace be 
unto you. And when He had said this, He showed 
unto them His hands and His side. The disciples 
therefore were glad, when they saw the Lord. Jesus 
therefore said to them again, Peace be unto you: 
as the Father hath sent Me, even so send I you. 
And when He had said this, He breathed on them, 
and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Spirit: 



Was There Only One Ascention? 15 1 

whose soever sins ye forgive, they are forgiven unto 
them ; whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained" 
(John XX 119-23). True it is that He did not 
then impart to them the Spirit's wonder-working 
powers, which were to be conferred upon them 
publicly, when "the day of Pentecost" should have 
"fully come" (Acts II :i). Still they would no 
longer be dependent upon Christ's personal, bodily 
presence. 

A very few words must suffice, in conclusion, in 
regard to the other accounts given us, in the synop- 
tical Gospels and elsewhere, relating to the ascen- 
sion of the Redeemer. And first of all, to quote 
the language of Prof. Johann Gottfried Kinkel, of 
the University of Bonn, in his Theologische Studien 
und Kritiken, "We must presuppose . . . that the 
notices which the New Testament furnishes us on 
the ascension of Christ, in respect to the time, place, 
and circumstances, are wholly inconsistent with 
each other." {Heidelberg, Vol. XIV, 1841, trans- 
lated by Prof. B. B. Edwards, Andover, in Biblio- 
theca Sacra, Vol. I, No. 1, 1844.) 

Brethren, there is not a shred of internal evidence 
that Luke XXIV is not absolutely continuous ! And 
no other argument has ever been produced, to prove 
that there was an interval of forty days between 
the main part of the chapter and the four closing 



152 The Humanity of the Christ 

verses. Had it not been for the fact that scholars 
were somehow or other possessed with the idea, that 
there could have been only one ascension, no one 
might ever have tried to break up the historic con- 
tinuity of the evangelist's account of the transactions 
of the first Lord's Day. 

As to the place whence He ascended, we read in 
verses 50 and 51, "And he led them out until they 
were over against Bethany: and He lifted up His 
hands, and blessed them. And it came to pass, 
while He blessed them, He parted from them, and 
was carried up into heaven." How far were they 
from Jerusalem? "About fifteen furlongs off," as 
John XI:i8 informs us. In Acts 1: 12 the same 
writer, i. e., Luke, declares that the apostles re- 
turned from the place where they had seen their 
Lord ascend, viz., "From the mount called Olivet, 
which is nigh unto Jerusalem, a Sabbath day's 
journey off," five, or possibly, six, furlongs distant. 
Let those who will, try to make it appear that the 
sacred writer meant to say that those two localities 
were one and the same. We are sincerely sorry for 
those who feel compelled to make such a futile at- 
tempt. 

And what of Matthew's account of the Savior's 
interview with the disciples after His resurrection, 
which took place neither in Jerusalem, nor yet near 



Was There Only One Ascension? 153 

Bethany, or anywhere on the mount of Olives, but 
in Galilee, on "the mountain where Jesus had ap- 
pointed them" (Ch. XXVIII :i6)? And whither 
did the Lord betake Himself, after He had then 
and there commissioned them to go and disciple "all 
the nations" (v. 19) ? Where else did He go but 
to those heavenly regions, where, and not on earth, 
was now his proper abode? Matthew indeed says 
nothing as to the manner of His ascent, but that, 
as Kinkel suggests, "can be explained in part . . . 
from the rhetorical nature of the composition: he 
would close with a sublime word. And yet," as this 
writer adds, "it seems impossible that a fact so 
slightly noticed, should be the same with that glori- 
ous ascension Luke has described in the Acts." 

Finally, it is certainly remarkable how that exact 
and matchless logician, the apostle Paul, in I. Cor. 
XV:5-8, uses the words EITA or EPEITA and 
E2XAT0N, "then" and "last," the first term four 
times; evidently wishing to be understood as speak- 
ing of a definite historical sequence of events. It 
is also noteworthy that he uses the very same Greek 
verb, OPHTHAY, in describing the Savior's ap- 
pearance to himself, as when he speaks of His 
being seen by Cephas and the rest. 

And are we quite sure that the appearance to 
"above five hundred brethren at once," took place 



154 The Humanity of the Christ 

before the scene described in Acts I, or even before 
Pentecost? If so, then how did it happen that only 
"about a hundred and twenty" men and women 
were "gathered together" (Acts 1 115) in Jerusalem, 
waiting, in obedience to the Lord's command, for 
the enduement from on high? After Pentecost, 
when thousands had been "added to the Lord" 
(Acts II:4i ; IV 14; V 114), the bringing together of 
over "five hundred" men presents, of course, no diffi- 
culty whatever; especially when we bear in mind 
that Paul says nothing as to the place where Christ 
revealed Himself to them. And such a post-Pente- 
costal revelation would have been as much in har- 
mony with our Lord's conduct, and that of the 
holy angels, towards His Church at that day, as 
were His different appearances to the apostle him- 
self. And if this appearance "to above five hundred 
brethren at once" was post-Pentecostal, then we 
must likewise conclude, according to I. Cor. XV, 
that our Lord did not take final leave of "the 
apostles whom He had chosen" (Acts 1:2) ten days 
before Pentecost, but that He met with them, in 
a body, at least once again after that notable day. 

If this paper shall lead any of you to conclude that 
our Lord's permanent place of abode, during the 
forty days that intervened between His resurrec- 
tion and His triumphal ascent "from the mount 



Was There Only One Ascension? 155 



called Olivet," was not on earth, but "in the heav- 
enly places," surrounded by the angels of His power, 
then it may also lead you to consider whether this 
does not at least give us some slight intimation, as 
to where will be the habitation, or, if you please, 
the more usual abiding place, of Christ and of His 
joint-heirs, in the coming kingdom of God, when, 
as we are assured in Hebrews II, they are to take 
the place of the angelic hosts in administering the 
affairs of this world, and when, as kings and priests 
"unto our God," "they" shall "reign upon the 
earth" (Rev. V:io). 



THE EFFICACY AND PROFITABLENESS 
OF PRAYER 

ANSWERS TO CERTAIN OBJECTIONS OF MODERN 
SKEPTICISM 

Job XXI: 14-15. 
"Therefore they say unto God, Depart from us; 
For we desire not the knowledge of Thy ways. 
What is the Almighty that ive should serve Him? 
And what profit should we have, if we pray unto 
Him?" 

HE Efficacy and Profitableness of Prayer: — such 
is the twofold subject, as suggested by these 
words of Holy Writ, to which your attention is now 
invited. 

It is of the wicked who prospered in his day that 
Job tells us, 

''Therefore they say unto God, Depart from us, 
For we desire not the knowledge of Thy ways." 

The very blessings which God bestowed upon 
them made them lose sight of the bountiful Giver, 
and filled them with a spirit of pride and self-suffi- 
156 



Efficacy and Profitableness of Prayer 157 

ciency. And hence too they cried out, in words of 
daring impiety, 

"What is the Almighty, that we should serve Him? 
And what profit should we have, if we pray unto 
Him?" 

It is indeed a bold, bald sort of atheism that con- 
fronts us, in this language of Job's godless contem- 
poraries. And yet,, my hearers, let us not seek to 
disguise the painful fact; if this is not always the 
language, yet it is ever the spirit, of the unbelieving 
heart of the natural man. And however much our 
modern objectors to the efficacy of prayer may 
squirm beneath the odium of the ugly charge of 
atheism, yet it is justly preferred against them; for 
he who scouts the very idea of prayer, whatever his 
professions may be, does in fact deny the very exist- 
ence of the only living and true God. 

Let us look the question squarely, honestly in the 
face, — Is prayer a mere empty, profitless, meaning- 
less superstition? or is it that which brings the soul 
of man into a living, blessed communion with the 
great and august Ruler of the universe? Is it a 
useless, needless waste of breath? or has it really 
power to move the arm that moves the world? 

Our remarks will necessarily be confined pretty 
much to a single point of view, viz., to suggest an- 



158 The Humanity of the Christ 

swers to certain objections of modern skepticism. 

The question has often been raised, Why should 
men pray at all? "What profit should we have, if 
we pray unto Him?" The answer to this and like 
queries will be best gained in the light of certain 
other and more specific questions. 

Are we sinners? or is man a pure, spotless being, 
who has never in a single instance violated any law 
of God? Will you ask that criminal, as he stands 
trembling at the bar of human justice, why he trou- 
bles himself to plead with his judge for pardon, or 
for the mitigation of his sentence, when a felon's 
death may await him on the morrow? And do you 
suppose that the angels in glory deem it a strange 
or preposterous thing, when they see a member of 
our fallen race, "every imagination of the thoughts 
of" whose "heart" has been "only evil continually" 
(Gen. VI 15), crying to God for mercy the moment 
he comes to his right mind, and realizes that aveng- 
ing justice is on his track? Ah! my impenitent 
hearer, if you only knew that that self-righteousness 
of which you boast, is no better in the estimation of 
high Heaven, than the most abominably filthy rags 
in which squalid poverty arrays itself, you too would 
at once raise the cry of the publican, "God, be Thou 
merciful to me a sinner!" (Luke XVIII 113). May 
the Lord in mercy open your eyes! 



Efficacy and Profitableness of Prayer 159 

But again — Are we weak and helpless? Is it rea- 
sonable for the little child, that has but barely 
learned to walk, as it stumbles along the rough 
and stony road, to ask its earthly father for the 
needed assistance? And if he be a man, and not a 
monster, will he turn a deaf ear to the cry of the 
little one ? Saith the Scripture, 

"Like as a father pitieth his children, 
So Jehovah pitieth them that fear Him. 
For He knoweth our frame; 
He remembereth that we are dust." 

(Ps. CIII:i 3 -i4.) 

The Christian has indeed secured the vantage- 
ground, being no longer under condemnation. Still 
he is at first but a babe in Christ, and ever after, 
as long as he abides in this mortal flesh, he has to 
contend with the inherent corruption of his fallen 
nature, and against a host of mighty spiritual foes 
from without. Must he then go forth to battle 
upon his own charges, in his own unaided strength, 
against the world, the flesh, and the Devil? When 
he cries to God for help, will the heavens mock his 
hopes, and be as brass over his head? It is not thus 
that the inspired Word speaks. When the Ephe- 
sian disciples were urged to put on "the whole armor 
of God," that thus they might be enabled to resist 



160 The Humanity of the Christ 

manfully the onslaughts of the powers of darkness, 
there follows the emphatic exhortation, "With all 
prayer and supplication, praying at all seasons in 
the Spirit, and watching thereunto in all perse- 
verance and supplication for all the saints" (Eph. 
VI: 1 3, 18). In the XLVI Psalm the ransomed, 
persecuted, struggling Church joyfully exclaims: 

"God is our refuge and strength, 
A very present help in trouble. 

Jehovah of hosts is with us; 
The God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah." 

(v's i, 7.) 

Language which Martin Luther loved to repeat to 
himself in his hours of despondency, and which sug- 
gested that noble hymn, which did so much to help 
on the cause of the Reformation, and the singing of 
which has so greatly encouraged the people of God 
from that day to this: 

"A mighty Fortress is our God, 
A Bulwark never failing, 
Our Helper He amid the flood 
Of mortal ills prevailing." 

"Again I say unto you," is the explicit declara- 
tion of our Redeemer, "that if two of you shall 
agree on earth, as touching anything that they shall 



Efficacy and Profitableness of Prayer 161 

ask, it shall be done for them of My Father Who 
is in heaven" (Matt. XVIII 119). And the writer 
to the Hebrews, in view of the fact that "the Son 
of God," our Lord Jesus Christ, is both a great 
High Priest, and One Who can have a fellow- 
feeling with us in our every weakness, exclaims, 
"Let us therefore draw near with boldness unto 
the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy, and 
may find grace to help us in time of need" (Ch. 
IV:i 4 , 16). 

But how, it is asked, can prayer alter the fixed 
laws of the universe? 

That is an old question, and a capital one, and 
a question too which many a blind devotee of the 
physical sciences loves to make use of. 

Now let it be noticed, first of all, that this sort of 
reasoning is based upon a very sandy foundation. 
The major premise of the objector's argument, if 
not utterly false, is very far from being proven. 
Who can tell us what laws, especially of the physical 
universe, are absolutely fixed? And indeed it mat- 
ters little whether you refer to the universe of mat- 
ter or of mind. 

Certain moral laws are fixed beyond all possibil- 
ity of change. But why? Simply because they 
have their source in the unalterable holiness, and in 
the inflexible justice and truth, of Him Who inhab- 



1 62 The Humanity of the Christ 

iteth the praises of eternity, and Who is "the same 
yesterday and to-day, yea and for ever" (Heb. 
XIII :8), and "with Whom can be no variation, 
neither shadow that is cast by turning" (James I: 
17). Were He man, and not God, who could tell 
but falsehood might be truth to-morrow, and truth 
falsehood ; for how often has not man succeeded in 
making "the worse appear the better reason" ? Nay, 
in how many cases has not men's faithlessness to 
the dictates of their consciences, at length utterly 
disqualified them to distinguish between truth and 
error, between right and wrong? Because our God 
is the God of truth, therefore we know that truth 
shall abide ; in no other way could we be absolutely 
certain of it. 

In regard to the physical universe it may be re- 
marked that no law, so far as is known to man, 
is more universal in its application than the law of 
gravitation, according to which a larger body at- 
tracts a smaller one. And yet every school-boy acts 
in utter defiance of that law, every time that he 
tosses a ball, or puffs a soap-bubble, into the air. 
And in whatever way that stupendous miracle was 
performed, when "the sun stayed in the midst of 
heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole 
day" (Jos X:i3) ; yet is it anything else save the 
most arrant presumption, to maintain that, in an- 



Efficacy and Profitableness of Prayer 163 

swer to Joshua's prayer, God could not have ar- 
rested, for even a single day, the action of this law? 
Or are we to come to the pitiable conclusion, that 
He Who created and Who upholds all things by 
the word of His power, has no control over a law 
which He Himself has ordained, and which a little 
child may daily violate with impunity? 

As another has suggested, it is indeed a question 
as to what was really most miraculous in the life 
of our Lord upon earth, the mighty works by means 
of which He demonstrated His Messiahship and Di- 
vine glory, or that "hiding of His power" (Hab. 
111:4), which at other times so effectually veiled 
the Godhead, that even the favored twelve were 
scarce aware of His true character. 

Furthermore, it may be that, in the life to come, 
the things which now we deem miraculous will then 
be common, while what is now esteemed common 
will then be accounted miraculous. 

And who will tell us what laws are most essen- 
tial? How often does not man, in making use of 
one physical law, utterly disregard another law? 
May not the great Lawmaker do as much Himself? 
And how do we know but that every seeming viola- 
tion, or setting aside, of known laws, is itself but 
the carrying out of some higher law, undiscovered 
as yet by man? 



164 The Humanity of the Christ 

But again. God is the Being of absolute perfec- 
tion. He has promised to answer prayer. Is it not 
worth while then that this or that physical law 
should be set aside, if need be, in order that His 
word may remain inviolate? And which is the. 
greater, the higher law? Is it the physical, or the 
moral? Are the Divine modes of operation in the 
material universe of more, or of less, importance 
than the attributes of His spotless moral excellence? 

His truth and His mercy stand pledged to secure 
the ultimate and complete salvation of every one 
who repents of his sins. And the double question 
of our blessed Redeemer, "For what shall a man 
be profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and 
forfeit his life? or what shall a man give in exchange 
for his life?" (Matt. XVI 126), fully warrants us 
in saying, that a single human soul is of more value 
than this whole terrestrial globe, yes, than all the 
material universe combined. And little would we 
ever hear in the way of objection to the need and 
the power of prayer, if men realized, on the one 
hand, the worth of the undying soul, and, on the 
other, the unspeakable and endless woe to which 
guilt exposes it! But, alas! many a modern hero- 
worshiper, though ready enough to turn his fellow- 
man, or even himself, into a god, has not the faint- 
est conception of the true dignity of man, as a crea- 



Efficacy and Profitableness of Prayer 165 

ture come from God, and whose existence is to run 
parallel with the endless years of the Eternal ! Nor 
can they have any just apprehension of the terrors 
of Divine wrath, whose proud and stubborn unbelief 
closes their eyes against the righteous demands of 
His moral law. 

But we must turn from this seeming digression. 

A certain class of physical scientists, like the late 
Prof. John Tyndall, may undertake to treat with 
supercilious contempt the supposition, 1 "that the 
Builder and Sustainer of" the myriad worlds that 
revolve throughout immensity, "should contract 
Himself to a burning bush, or behave in other fa- 
miliar ways ascribed to Him" in the Scriptures. Of 
course, if Professor Tyndall had read his Bible with 
a little more care, he would have known better than 
to talk about God as "contracting Himself." But 
are these men after all really the grossest of mate- 
rialists and pantheists, so that they cannot even con- 
ceive of the Godhead except as an immense body? 
And, notwithstanding all their fine talk, how much 
better, for any practical purpose, is their faith than 
that of the most out-and-out atheist? 

These wise men of the world may talk of all the 
truly amazing ways, in which Jehovah has come 
down to our human frailty, as things that appear 
1 Tyndall's Fragments of Science, p. 420. 



1 66 The Humanity of the Christ 

like "astounding incongruities to the scientific man" : 
but, while even such as they hardly dare to say that 
these "incongruities," as they presume to call them, 
are impossible, and while they often feel forced to 
confess their utter ignorance in regard to the ways 
of God, even in the domain of nature ; we, who have 
an open Bible before us, and who can confidently 
affirm with the apostle Paul, "He that spared not 
His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, 
how shall He not also with Him freely give us all 
things?" (Rom. VIII 132); we, who know from 
this same blessed volume of truth, that the angelic 
hosts are "all ministering spirits, sent forth to do 
service for the sake of them that shall inherit salva- 
tion"; we, who can recall the comparative value 
which our Lord has put upon the soul of man, and 
who know how He gave Himself unto the cruel 
and shameful death of the cross for its redemption; 
surely, my brethren, no one of us need stagger 
through unbelief, either at the promises of Him, 
Who has declared that He will heed the cry of 
the humble, giving "good things to them that ask 
Him" (Matt. VII :n), nor yet at the testimony 
of His people, when they tell us how they cried 
"unto Jehovah in their trouble, and" how He has 
brought "them out of their distresses" (Ps. CVII: 
28). 






Efficacy and Profitableness of Prayer 167 

Another consideration should be added right here. 
What are these so-called fixed and eternal laws of 
nature? When "Jehovah answered Job out of the 
whirlwind," He put to him these among many other 
like questions — questions before which even modern 
physical science, with all its truly wonderful re- 
searches and discoveries, must yet stand abashed, 
confessing its utter impotency — 

"Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of 

the earth ? 
Declare, if thou hast understanding. 
Who determined the measures thereof, if thou 

knowest ? 
Or who stretched the line upon it? 
Whereupon were the foundations thereof fastened? 
Or who laid the corner-stone thereof? 
When the morning stars sang together, 
And all the sons of God shouted for joy?" 

"Canst thou bind the cluster of the Pleiades, 

Or loose the bands of Orion? 

Canst thou lead forth the Mazzaroth in their sea- 
son? 

Or canst thou guide the Bear with her train ? 

Knowest thou the ordinances of the heavens? 

Canst thou establish the dominion thereof in the 
earth ? 

Canst thou lift up thy voice to the clouds, 

That abundance of waters may cover thee? 



1 68 The Humanity of the Christ 

Canst thou send forth the lightnings, that they may 

go, 
And say unto thee, Here we are? 
Who hath put wisdom in the inward parts? 
Or who hath given understanding to the mind?" 
(Job XXXVIII :i, 4-7, 31-36.) 

And the truly wise man, who has become aware 
of the limitations of human knowledge, will be 
ready to confess with Job as to all that, that they 
are 

"Things too wonderful for me, which I knew not." 

(Ch. XLII:3.) 

After all man's attempts to unravel the mysteries 
that everywhere environ him, the final and the only 
reasonable explanation will ever remain the same; 
and that explanation, the only one in which the ra- 
tional mind can fully rest, refers all to "The ever- 
lasting God, Jehovah, the Creator of the ends of 
the earth," Who "fainteth not, neither is weary; 
there is no searching of His understanding" (Is. 
XL:28). 

These so-called fixed and eternal laws of nature 
are simply "the ordinances of the heavens"; God's 
methods of regulating the worlds that He has made. 
Were there no system, no regularity, no harmony 
about the movements of the material universe, then 



Efficacy and Profitableness of Prayer 169 

all man's plans and labors would be subject to end- 
less confusion. "Seedtime and harvest, and cold 
and heat, and summer and winter, and day and 
night shall not cease" (Gen. VIII 122), even as 
Jehovah promised to Noah when he came out of 
the ark. And yet, with all this general certainty, 
is not God continually teaching us, by the very un- 
certainty which encompasses all these, never to lose 
sight of Himself, as not only having established 
the seasons with their laws, but likewise as being 
the ever-living Administrator of His own govern- 
ment, enforcing, or setting aside, according to His 
sovereign good-pleasure, the laws which He has or- 
dained and established? 

To claim that God is utterly powerless to 
change the mode of His administration, is in effect 
to tell us that He is after all but the slave of a 
blind, resistless fatalism; and that, having once es- 
tablished certain laws, they are thenceforth for ever 
beyond His control. And what is this to all in- 
tents and purposes; what else but practical athe- 
ism? For whatever professions such people may 
make, they evidently have no faith in, but abso- 
lutely deny, the only living and true God, Who re- 
veals Himself in His Word as that glorious, that 
everywhere present Being, Who "doeth according 
to His will in the army of heaven, and among the 



170 The Humanity of the Christ 

inhabitants of the earth" (Dan. IV 135) ; and hence, 
if they worship, or adore, any other god but self, 
or a fellow-creature, it can only be the unsubstan- 
tial product of an unsanctifled imagination. 

From all such vagaries of unbelief, however, let 
us turn to the noble declarations of that greatest 
perhaps of mathematicians and natural philosophers, 
Sir Isaac Newton, who, at the end of "a large vol- 
ume all bristling with figures and calculations," in 
which he "set forth his discoveries," says, "The 
Master of the heavens governs all things, not as 
being the soul of the world, but as being the Sov- 
ereign of the universe. It is on account of His sov- 
ereignty that we call Him the Sovereign God. He 
governs all things, those which are, and those which 
may be. He is the one God, and the same God, 
everywhere and always. We admire Him because 
of His perfections, we reverence and adore Him be- 
cause of His sovereignty. A God without sov- 
ereignty, without providence, and without object in 
His works, would be only destiny or nature. Now, 
from a blind metaphysical necessity, everywhere and 
always the same, could arise no variety; all that 
diversity of created things according to places and 
times (which constitutes the order and life of the 
universe) could only have been produced by the 



Efficacy and Profitableness of Prayer 171 

thought and will of a Being Who is the Being, ex- 
isting by Himself and necessarily." 2 

As some of you may recall, not a little noise was 
once made, in this country as well as in the British 
Isles, by what was known as Professor Tyndall's 
prayer gauge. Two wards were to be selected in a 
certain hospital ; for the sick and the wounded in one 
of these wards Christians everywhere were to pray, 
while for those in the other no prayer was to be 
offered up; and the result was to demonstrate to 
the scientific world, and to the rest of mankind, 
whether or no God hears and answers prayer. 

It were a waste of time, perhaps, at this late day, 
to show the heartlessness of such a proposition; to 
point out the utter absurdity, impossibility, and 
worthlessness of such a test; or to characterize fitly 
so daring an insult against high Heaven, which 
would have put to the blush many an ancient Greek 
and Roman pagan, with his deference and piety 
towards the gods whom he ignorantly worshiped. 

We refer to it mainly as furnishing a pertinent 
illustration of what our Lord told Nicodemus, that 
"men loved the darkness rather than the light" 
(John III:i9) >' and to point out the fact, that how- 
ever zealous men may be in their scientific or his- 

a See Newton's Principia, or Naville's The Heavenly 
Father, pp. 181-182. 



172 The Humanity of the Christ 

torical researches, their minds may yet remain her- 
metically sealed against the reception of the most 
obvious truths, if the heart is at enmity with God. 
For what could well be more perfectly amazing, 
than such stark blindness on the part of an emi- 
nent scientist, to the actual results of prayer? At 
one time, when our noted American evangelist, 
Dwight L. Moody, labored in the cities of New 
York and Philadelphia, 3 in the one case two hun- 
dred, and in the other one hundred drunkards, were 
hopefully converted to God. After about a year 
it was ascertained that out of the two hundred only 
one, while out of the one hundred not even one, 
had gone back to his cups! And the history of the 
Church of God in our own day, and in all the ages 
of the past, teems with facts illustrative of the power 
of prayer to move the arm that moves the world, 
and to draw fallen man upward toward heaven and 
toward God! And yet these men, who are con- 
stantly sounding a trumpet before them, in proof 
of their zeal in search of truth, deliberately turn 
their back upon all this multiform and ever increas- 
ing mass of evidence, and, like the unbelieving Phari- 
sees of old, seek after a sign from heaven ; and thus, 
as Cowper has so well said, does 

"In the winter of 1875-1876. 



Efficacy and Profitableness of Prayer 173 

"Blind unbelief" ever "err, 
And scan" God's "work in vain." 

While the world now, as in apostolic times, 
through its vaunted wisdom, fails to know God, 
yet we may rejoice to know that even in our own 
day, the really great masters in the domain of phys- 
ical science are, in very many cases, devout dis- 
ciples of the despised Nazarene. 

Professor Tyndall is himself forced to give this 
testimony, in regard to the childlike faith of Michael 
Faraday, whose discoveries 1 "in nearly every branch 
of physics," have given him a world-wide fame, and 
who passed from earth August 25, 1867, in 
the faith of that Redeemer, Whose humble, loving 
disciple he had ever been. 2 "He said grace," 3 — 
Tyndall is describing a visit which, while a young 
man he enjoyed at Faraday's — "He said grace. I am 
almost ashamed to call his prayer a 'saying' of grace. 
In the language of Scripture, it might be described 
as the petition of a son, into whose heart God had 
sent the Spirit of His Son, and who with absolute 
trust asked a blessing from his Father." A leading 
man of science, of whom Prof. Ernest Naville, of 

1 Chambers's Encyclopaedia. 

2 See The Life and Letters of Faraday by Dr. Bence 
Jones, Vol. II, pp. 428-486, passim. 

* Fragments of Science, p. 350. 



174 The Humanity of the Christ 

the University of Geneva, inquired as to his esti- 
mate of Faraday, returned this answer, 4 "You may 
boldly say that, by the unanimous consent of men 
of science, Mr. Faraday, in regard both to the great- 
ness and range of his discoveries, is the first natural 
philosopher living." And only a few years before 
his death, Faraday reaffirmed his conviction, 5 "that 
he has never recognized any incompatibility between 
science and faith, and makes the following declara- 
tion: Even in earthly matters I reckon that 'the 
invisible things of God, from the creation of the 
world, are clearly seen, being understood by the 
things that are made, even His eternal power and 
Godhead.' " 

To pray, my dear hearers, is simply to act in ac- 
cordance with the nature God has given us. As 
says another, "So far from being below human dig- 
nity, prayer is the highest assertion of human dig- 
nity. It proclaims that man was made for God, 
and cannot live without Him." In proof of this 
we need but refer you to the well-known fact that 
all men everywhere, and in all ages of the world, 
have prayed in some way or other, whenever trou- 
ble and distress have suddenly overwhelmed them. 

*Naville's The Heavenly Father, Lectures on Modern 
Atheism. Downton's translation, p. 198. 
6 Ibid., pp. 199-200. 



Efficacy and Profitableness of Prayer 175 

At such times prayer has ever sprung spontaneously 
from the heaving breast of affrighted humanity. 

Lactantius, a writer of the fourth century, speak- 
ing of the pagans of his day, says, "In their pros- 
perity . . . then most of all does God escape the 
memory of men, when in the enjoyment of His bene- 
fits they ought to honor His divine beneficence. But 
if any weighty necessity shall press them, then they 
remember God. If the terror of war shall have re- 
sounded, if the pestilential force of diseases shall 
have overhung them, if long-continued drought shall 
have denied nourishment to the crops, if a violent 
tempest or hail shall have assailed them, they be- 
take themselves to God, aid is implored from God, 
God is entreated to succor them. If any one is 
tossed about on the sea, the wind being furious, it 
is this God Whom he invokes. If any one is har- 
assed by any violence, he implores His aid. If any 
one, reduced to the last extremity of poverty, begs 
for food, he appeals to God alone, and by His di- 
vine and matchless name alone he seeks to gain the 
compassion of men. Thus they never remember 
God, unless it be while they are in trouble. When 
fear has left them, and the dangers have withdrawn, 
then in truth they quickly hasten to the temples of 
the gods: they pour libations to them, they sacri- 
fice to them, they crown them with garlands. But 



176 The Humanity of the Christ 

to God, Whom they called upon in their necessity 
itself, they do not give thanks even in word. Thus 
from prosperity arises luxury; and from luxury, 
together with all other voices, there arises impiety 
towards God." * 

A friend of ours was one day conversing with 
some one in this city, who declared that religion 
was all a humbug, and that man was no more than 
any other animal; when he died, that was the end 
of him. One morning, not long after this, that 
same professed atheist awoke from his slumbers. He 
spoke to his wife, who lay at his side, telling her 
that it was time for them to arise; but she did not 
answer him. Then he reached out his hand to 
awaken her, when he was horrified to find her cold 
in death ! What did he do ? Bury her, as he would 
have buried a cow or a dog ? No ! the very first thing 
he did was to send for a minister of religion, thus 
giving the lie to his pretended atheism ! 

The late somewhat notorious Bradlaugh, having 
delivered a lecture in a certain English town in 
favor of infidelity, called upon any of his audience 
to reply to his argument, when a collier arose and 
spoke somewhat as follows: — "Maister Bradlaugh, 
me and my mate Jim were both Methodys, till one 
of these infidel chaps cam' this way. Jim turned 

4 The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. VII, pp. 40-41. 



Efficacy and Profitableness of Prayer 177 

infidel, and used to badger me about attending class- 
meetings and prayer-meetings. But one day in the 
pit a large cob of coal came down upon Jim's head. 
Jim thought he was killed, and, ah, mon! how he 
did holler." Then turning to Mr. Bradlaugh with 
a very knowing look, he said, "Young man, there's 
naught like cobs of coal for knocking infidelity out 
of a man." 

Let us hold fast, my brethren, to our faith in 
God. What Jehovah hath said, shall not that come 
to pass? He has promised to hear and to answer 
the prayer of faith ; shall He not perform it ? Asks 
one: 

"Say what is prayer, when it is prayer indeed? 
The mighty utterance of a mighty need. 
The man is praying, who doth press with might 
Out of his darkness into God's own light." 5 

And having yourselves come into that glorious 
light of life, will you not plead earnestly with God, 
that He may bestow a like priceless boon upon those 
who know Him not? 

And what shall we say to you who are still out 

of Christ, "having no hope, and without God in 

the world" (Eph. 11:2), to whom the future is all 

dark and dismal? "Are you afraid of God!" asks 

'Archbishop Trench, in Christian Lyrics, p. 6. 



178 The Humanity of the Christ 

the great Augustine. "Run to His arms!" Yes, 
sinner, to-day to the mercy-seat for shelter fly: 

" 'Tis there thy soul shall find a safe retreat 
When storms and tempests rise." 



CHRIST'S INVITATION TO THE 
BURDENED AND WEARY 

Matt. XI:28-3o. "Come unto Me, all ye that labor 
and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take 
My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for I am meek and 
lowly in heart; and ye shall find rest unto your souls. 
For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light." 

TN undertaking to discourse upon this wonderful 
invitation of our adorable Redeemer, it may not 
be out of place to offer, by way of preface, a brief 
exegetical criticism. 

According to our English Bible this invitation is 
addressed to such as "labor and are heavy laden." 
The word "labor," however, fails to give full ex- 
pression to the real import of the Savior's language. 
There is indeed no single English term that can 
adequately express the meaning of the original. The 
Dutch translators have rendered the Greek verb by 
a word that signifies being tired out, which cer- 
tainly corresponds more exactly with the inspired 
text. But the German Bible uses a word, which 
is not only exceedingly expressive, but is also one 
which seems to convey the precise thought that was 
179 



180 The Humanity of the Christ 

in our Lord's mind, when He extended this gra- 
cious invitation. The German word here used is 
"Miihselig," a compound term, the first part of 
which signifies toil, trouble, pains; the latter denot- 
ing happiness, bliss, salvation. And thus, while the 
proper signification of the word is, to be full of 
pain, and to feel weary, miserable, and wretched, 
because of long continued and fruitless toil, its 
etymological import is, to have become weary and 
exhausted in the vain endeavor to secure present 
happiness, or eternal salvation. 

These various, though analogous, significations, 
we doubt not, are all implied in the language of 
our Lord. 

In confirmation of this definition of the term "la- 
bor," as found in the text, it may be remarked, fur- 
ther, that the same Greek verb which the Savior 
employed on this occasion, is used by the apostle 
John, where he tells us that the Lord Jesus sat on 
Jacob's well, because He was "wearied with His 
journey" (John IV :6). And it occurs likewise in 
Rev. II :3, where He commends the saints at Ephe- 
sus, because they had "not grown weary." 

As to the phrase "heavy laden," as found in verse 
28, it may suffice to remark that the Greek verb is 
analogous to the noun which is rendered "burden" 
in the 30th verse, and that both verb and noun 



Christ's Invitation to the Burdened 181 

are used by our Lord, in denouncing the expositors 
and teachers of the Mosaic law, as when we read, 
Luke XI 146, "Woe unto you lawyers also! for 
ye load men with burdens grievous to be borne, and 
ye yourselves touch not the burdens with one of 
your fingers." 

As another has remarked, 1 "The expressions la- 
bor and are heavy laden, in the first verse, answer 
exactly to yoke and burden in the last; and the two 
ideas comprehend all the modes in which working 
animals can be employed. They either draw or 
carry; in the former case they wear a yoke; in the 
latter, they bear a burden. There is then a beau- 
tiful contrast between the ideas in the first verse 
and those in the last. The bondage of the world 
and the flesh in the one is opposed to the happy 
enfranchisement implied in the service of Christ in 
the other." 

It is evident, therefore, that the Savior's invita- 
tion to come to Him, is addressed to such as have 
become wearied and exhausted, in the vain and 
fruitless endeavor to find peace and rest for their 
afflicted souls, and who still continue to groan un- 
der a galling yoke, or an oppressive burden, of which 
they can by no means rid themselves; nay, whose 

1 Rev. Alexander Knox. 



1 82 The Humanity of the Christ 

heavy weight they are as utterly powerless to 
lighten. 

We need scarcely remind you, beloved hearers, 
that our Lord here addresses Himself to those who 
have, to some extent at least, become conscious of 
the fearful load of personal guilt that is resting upon 
them, and whose every attempt to cast it from them, 
or even to ease the oppressiveness of the burden, has 
only ended in bitter disappointment, and in more 
intense and poignant grief and suffering. It should, 
however, also be borne in mind that this is the only 
class to whom the invitation of the text is addressed. 

The Bible affirms of all unregenerate men, that 
they are guilty before God, and that they are ex- 
posed to His wrath. But multitudes either make a 
mock at sin, or vainly imagine that no burden is rest- 
ing upon them ; while there is another class, who are 
painfully conscious of their sad condition, though 
ignorant as to the means of relief. 

Not that these last are in reality greater sinners 
than other men. Indeed this is not even a question 
of comparative degrees of guilt. The question is 
simply whether or no the sinner is ready to make 
a straightforward, an honest, and a frank confession 
of the real facts in his case. King David did not 
all of a sudden become a great sinner when, after 
that stern rebuke of the prophet Nathan, "Thou 



Christ's Invitation to the Burdened 183 

art the man!" (II. Sam. XII 7), He uttered the 
penitential Psalm of the ages. His soul was no 
less blood-stained while, a moment before, with 
seemingly righteous indignation, he presumed to 
pronounce sentence of condemnation upon the rich 
man, who had stolen the one little ewe lamb of his 
poor neighbor. 

In fact a sinner can hardly be in a more perilous 
position than to suppose that he is good enough as 
he is. There were many such when Christ was here 
among men, who could boast of their morality, their 
good deeds, their conformity to the outward forms 
of religion: yet He, Who knew what was in their 
hearts, so thoroughly exposed their folly, hypocrisy, 
and wickedness, that the very term Pharisee, which 
was then pre-eminently a title of respectability, of 
honor, and of piety, has come to signify all that is 
base and loathsome in the sight of God and man ! 

The name, Pharisee, is indeed no longer claimed 
by the proud and self-righteous : but, alas ! the spirit 
of the Pharisees of old still lives. Men still boast of 
their honesty, their sincerity, their deeds of charity, 
as though these things would surely open to them 
the gates of the heavenly Jerusalem ! How securely 
many rest in the fact that they were baptized in in- 
fancy, even though during their whole lives they 
have practically denied Him, to Whose service their 



184 The Humanity of the Christ 

parents consecrated them! Or how they glory in 
having been dipped in some flowing stream, wholly 
ignorant meanwhile of this other fact, that not all 
the waters of the Atlantic Ocean can wash away 
their guilt, when there is neither repentance toward 
God, nor faith upon the Lord Jesus Christ! Alas! 
alas! that such multitudes should pride themselves 
in "a form of godliness" (II. Tim. 111:5), while 
utterly destitute of its transforming and sanctifying 
power ! Or, if such people have no connection what- 
ever with the visible Church, how ready are they 
then to console themselves with the thought, "I 
am just as good as these church members." Well, 
Heaven have mercy on you, if you are no better 
than lots of them! But God tells us in regard to 
all such, whether they are in the church, or outside 
of its pale, though they may say to themselves, "I 
am rich, and have gotten riches, and have need of 
nothing" ; that they are in very deed "wretched, and 
miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked" (Rev. 
III:i7). 

My dear hearer! do you belong to any one of 
these classes? Alas! if you do, then this gracious 
invitation of our adorable Redeemer is not addressed 
to you. If you are well, then you have no need of 
a physician. But, oh! if still out of Christ, then 
you are not well! You are a poor, sin-sick soul! 



Christ's Invitation to the Burdened 185 

You do need salvation ! You need to be saved from 
yourself! And your persistent denial of the truth, 
as to your sad moral and spiritual condition, does 
not, cannot do away with the appalling fact that you 
are a sinner before God, deservedly doomed to ever- 
lasting woe, from which naught save the blood and 
intercession of the Lord Jesus Christ can save you! 

We are not discussing a question of mere proba- 
bilities. As God's word is true, aye, as your own 
prayerless, thankless life proves, you are verily guilty 
before God. A fearful burden is resting upon you, 
and the danger is imminent that it will sink your 
poor soul into perdition ! Oh ! why so blind? Why 
will you not acknowledge that God is true, and that 
without His pardoning and saving mercy you are 
undone for ever? 

"Sinners Jesus came to call," and if you are not 
ready to acknowledge yourself as such, then you 
can have neither part nor lot in His salvation. You 
must then be your own advocate in that day of 
awful solemnity, "when God shall judge the se- 
crets of men, according to" our "Gospel, by Jesus 
Christ" (Rom. II: 16), and when He "will make 
justice the line, and righteousness the plummet; 
and" when "the hail shall sweep away the refuge of 
lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding-place" 
(Is. XXVIII :i7). 



1 86 The Humanity of the Christ 

But we appeal to your conscience before God, is 
it true, my hearer, however much you may seek to 
hide it from others, and even from yourself; is it 
true that you feel no burden resting upon you ? Are 
you altogether free from a sense of guilt? Do you 
never have any fearful apprehensions whatever, as 
you look death and the judgment in the face? Ah! 
you scarce dare think of these things! And yet you 
have never humbled yourself before your Maker, or 
implored His pardoning mercy in Jesus Christ! Oh! 
if such is really your condition, may a merciful God 
open your eyes before your steps take hold on hell! 

But if, as we trust, your conscience has been 
troubling you; if the truth has at all shaken you 
out of the listlessness of your self-confidence ; if the 
Spirit of God has even begun to strive with you ; if 
only that awful lethargy, which so often foretokens 
the death eternal, has been disturbed and broken; 
then we pray God that you may find no peace or 
rest till you find them in Jesus ; then we have blessed 
tidings for you to-day, for these gracious words of 
the Master are for just such tempest-tossed souls 
as yours. 

"As an eagle that stirreth up her nest, 
That fluttereth over her young, 
He spread abroad His wings, He took them, 
He bare them on His pinions" Deut. XXXII :i i ). 



Christ's Invitation to the Burdened 187 

As Jehovah thus dealt with Israel of old, so He 
even yet often stirs up the nest of pride and self- 
righteousness, in which the deluded sinner reclines 
at his ease, tosses him out upon the stormy billows 
of doubt and dismay; and then, when the poor soul 
cries out, "I am a wretch undone! I shall surely 
perish!" even then, in His infinite mercy, 

"He spreads abroad His wings, takes him, 
Bears him on His pinions." 

O ! ye burdened and weary ones, hear the voice of 
Jesus, as He says to each one of you to-day, "Come 
unto Me, . . . and I will give you rest." 

Do not try, my dying hearer, to carry that heavy 
burden alone. Why labor, why strive, why weary 
and distress yourself any longer, in vainly seeking 
to rid yourself of the oppressive load? You have 
yourself largely to blame for it. And every day 
and every hour that you continue to reject the 
mercy of God in Christ, you are making matters 
worse and worse. 

The Lord Jesus, in His wondrous compassion and 
love, has come to you by His word and Spirit, and 
has simply made you conscious of your guilt, of the 
fact that a burden is resting upon you. And you, 
with your eyes but half opened as yet, like the man 
in the Gospel who at first saw men "as trees, walk- 



1 88 The Humanity of the Christ 

ing" (Mark VIII 124), you blame Him, or, it may 
be, the servant whom He has employed in this thing, 
for the unrest and the anxiety that trouble you. 
But, dear hearer, may your eyes but be fully opened, 
and how you will bless God that your guilty peace 
was disturbed betimes ! Yes ! our Lord does use the 
moral law, even as the oriental plowman uses the 
sharp pointed ox-goad, that He may drive men out 
of their self-righteous nests and fastnesses; shows 
them their moral and spiritual deformity in the sight 
of God; and then He shows them yet again those 
pierced hands and that bleeding side, which, in the 
days of their carnal security, they had despised and 
treated with scorn, and once more He says to them, 
— All this I bore for your sake; give Me your loving 
service, and all that I possess shall be yours. 

"Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy 
laden, and I will give you rest. Take My ' yoke 
upon you, and learn of Me; for I am meek and 
lowly in heart; and ye shall find rest unto your 
souls. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is 
light." 

Oh! you who for these weeks, or months, or 
years past, have sought and striven, and have sought 
and striven in vain, to get rid of the heavy burden 
of your sins, with what gladness and joy should 
you accept this most loving invitation. Here is a 



Chrisfs Invitation to the Burdened 189 

promise of rest for you, and it meets your case ex- 
actly. Christ does not simply consent to bear little 
burdens; no! the greater your burden with the 
greater confidence may you come to Him. 

But perhaps you are saying, How will Christ give 
me rest, when He commands me to take His yoke 
upon my weary shoulders? The yoke that I have 
thus far been compelled to wear is heavy and galling. 
What I now need is not another yoke, but entire 
freedom and rest. All this, in the highest and best 
sense, is what the Savior designs, and what He will 
assuredly accomplish for all who come to Him; for 
he, whom the Son makes free, "shall be free indeed" 
(John 111:36), yea, eternally free! But no one of 
us is ready for such absolute liberty in this present 
imperfect state. Of this, however, He assures you ; 
the yoke which He bids you take upon you is easy, 
and it is but a light burden which He bids you 
carry. Says an old writer, "It is difficult, and yet 
not difficult, to be a Christian. Only be in earnest, 
and take not up the Gospel as a trivial thing, but 
upon both thy shoulders. Make not light of thy 
load for Christ, and Christ will make it light for 
thee." And here remember two things. First, that 
a yoke is designed to help one to do his work, not 
to be a hindrance to it. Secondly, that the Savior 
says, "My yoke," which implies fellowship in toil, 



190 The Humanity of the Christ 

and that He will bear the heavy end of it Himself. 
Consider again Who it is that extends this gra- 
cious and loving invitation. These are not the 
words of a mere man. What folly and presump- 
tion it would be for any mere creature, even though 
he were an angel or an archangel, to extend such an 
invitation as this of our text. Says the psalmist, 

"Cast thy burden upon Jehovah, and He will sus- 
tain thee: 
He will never suffer the righteous to be moved." 

(Ps. LV:22.) 
And again, 

"I acknowledged my sin unto Thee, 
And mine iniquity did I not hide : 
I said, I will confess my transgressions unto Je- 

hovah ; 
And Thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin. 

Thou art my hiding place ; Thou wilt preserve me 
from trouble; 

Thou wilt compass me about with songs of deliv- 
erance. Selah!" (Ps. XXXII :5, 7.) 

Ah! this is the call of the God-Man, Jehovah- 
Jesus! Why, the very fact that the holy Jesus has 
extended such an invitation to all the burdened and 
weary of earth, would alone suffice to prove His 
almighty power and Godhead. 



Christ's Invitation to the Burdened 191 

Nor must we forget that — to quote the language 
of the Rev. Dr. William Hanna — "This invitation 
loses half its meaning, taken out of the connection 
in which it was spoken. We understand and ap- 
preciate its significance only by looking upon it as 
grounded on and flowing out of what Christ had 
the moment before been saying, 'All things have 
been delivered unto Me of My Father' (v. 27). 
Simply that they might so freely, fully come unto 
us, He has all, holds all as the Treasurer of the 
kingdom, the Steward of the divine mercies. And 
He holds all under the condition that there shall be 
the freest, most gracious dispensing of all, that who- 
soever asks shall get, that no needy one shall ever 
come to Him and be sent unrelieved away." 

Say you, I am guilty and vile? Behold, He is 
"Jehovah our Righteousness" (Jer. XXIII :6). 

He bids you, moreover, to come and learn of 
Him. Sin terrifies. Satan, when no longer able 
to quiet the sinner's fears, seeks to persuade him 
that God will not heed his cries for mercy. But the 
Gospel, my friend, is a message of glad tidings of 
great joy. It is true indeed that even this later por- 
tion of revealed truth contains some most terrible 
denunciations: but not one of these — what is true 
likewise of all Scripture — not one of these is di- 
rected against the truly penitent soul. God's wrath 



192 The Humanity of the Christ 

awaits the stubborn rebel; not those who humble 
themselves before Him. 

Burdened, weary, sin-sick souls, such Jesus came 
to call, and such He evermore delights to bless. 

"Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for 
I am meek and lowly in heart." O for the trum- 
pet-tongue of an angel, or archangel, that we might 
be able to set forth the full meaning of this astound- 
ing declaration! Did you hear it, sinner? O open 
wide your sluggish ears. Yes ! fling wide open upon 
its rusty, creaking hinges the door of your heart, 
and listen while the Lord Jesus, Whose "name" is 
"called Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, Ever- 
lasting Father, Prince of Peace" (Is. IX :6), stoops 
down from the throne of His glory, and says to you ; 
to you, a creature of yesterday; to you, a worm of 
the dust ; to you, a rebel against His righteous sway ; 
"Come unto Me, . . . learn of Me; for I am 
meek and lowly in heart." And will you, dare you 
refuse to humble yourself, so that you may walk 
with Him, and that He may make you wise unto 
salvation ? 

A missionary, while on a preaching tour in India, 
stopped at a Buddhist temple, and the priests, old 
and young, gathered around him. He told them the 
"old, old story" of Jesus and His love, from begin- 
ning to end, and made everything so plain and 



Christ's Invitation to the Burdened 193 

practical that they could not but understand it all, 
and then an old, decrepit priest got up and walked 
off, saying, "I won't have it — I won't have it. If 
I cannot save myself I am willing to go to hell!" 
And is this to be the awful, the appalling choice of 
any one of you, beloved hearers? When the Bible 
tells you so plainly, what your own sober reason 
cannot but reaffirm, that all your attempts to merit 
heaven are a delusion and a lie, are you going to 
make your bed in hell, rather than humble yourself 
to accept salvation as the free gift of God? 

"Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for 
I am meek and lowly in heart ; and ye shall find rest 
unto your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My bur- 
den is light." Do you say that you are not fit for 
such lofty companionship? 

"All the fitness He requireth 
Is to feel your need of Him. 

This He gives you; 
'Tis the Spirit's rising beam!" 

In the beautiful language of another we would 
ask thee, O sinner, 

"Art thou weary, art thou languid, 

Art thou sore distrest? 
'Come to Me' — saith One — 'and, coming, 
Be at rest!' 



194 The Humanity of the Christ 

Hath He marks to lead me to Him, 

If He be my Guide?' 
In His feet and hands are wound-prints, 
And His side. 5 

Is there diadem, as Monarch, 
That His brow adorns?' 
Yea, a crown, in very surety, 
But of thorns!' 

If I find Him, if I follow, 
What His guerdon here?' 
Many a sorrow, many a labor, 
Many a tear.' 

If I still hold closely to Him, 

What hath He at last?' 
Sorrow vanquished, labor ended, 
Jordan passed!' 

If I ask Him to receive me, 

Will He say me nay?' 
Not till earth and not till heaven 
Pass away!' 

Finding, following, keeping, struggling, 

Is He sure to bless?' 
'Angels, Martyrs, Prophets, Virgins, 
Answer, Yes!'" 2 

2 St. Stephen the Sabaite, 725-794. A.D. Freely trans- 
lated from the original Greek by John Mason Neale, D.D. 






Christ's Invitation to the Burdened 195 

Why, our blessed Redeemer did not even rest 
content with having made this gracious offer while 
on earth, and so He repeats it from heaven. "Be- 
hold," He says, "I stand at the door, and knock: 
if any man hear My voice, and open the door, I 
will come in to him, and will sup with him, and 
he with Me" (Rev. III:2o). And the very last 
page of revealed truth sends back the glad refrain, 
"And the Spirit and the bride say, Come! And he 
that heareth, let him say, Come! And he that is 
athirst, let him come: he that will," whosoever it 
be, though without feeling, though scarcely con- 
scious of any hungering and thirsting in his soul 
after God and holiness, if he is but willing to ac- 
cept of salvation as a free gift, "let him take the 
water of life freely!" (Rev. XXII:i7). 

A learned German theologian, Rudolph Ewald 
Stier, speaking of our text and the immediate con- 
text, says, "The whole of this comprehensive con- 
clusion of the discourse is an inexhaustible text, 
which can never be preached out! Who is it that 
invites, beseeches, and calls? The eternal Son of 
the eternal Father, for us become the Son of Man. 
Whom does He call? All who will know them- 
selves to be what they are, weary and heavy laden. 
What does He promise them? Refreshment and 
rest for their souls. What does He require as the 



196 The Humanity of the Christ 

conditions? Nothing, absolutely nothing, but com- 
ing; and when they are come, and have already 
received His consolation, only the abiding with 
Him, learning of Him." 

"In a little church at Newport, in the Isle of 
Wight, there is a beautiful marble monument, erect- 
ed by Her Majesty," the late Queen Victoria. 
"It represents a young girl reclining with her head 
on an open Bible ; and on the marble page you read 
the words, 'Come unto Me, all ye that labor and 
are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.' It rep- 
resents the young princess Elizabeth, who, 'during 
the wars of the Commonwealth, languished in Car- 
isbrook Castle, and was found by her jailer lying 
dead on the floor, with her cheek upon the open 
page" of her Bible, "and just at this particular 
text." There, in her prison solitude and loneliness, 
she had found rest in the bosom of her Savior. And 
that same loving Savior is ready to bless even you, 
my hearer. O ! come to Jesus ! and come just now ! 
Come just as you are, with the whole burden of 
your guilt and shame, and He will cast over you 
the mantle of infinite charity, and clothe you in the 
garb of His perfect righteousness. Come with this 
only plea, that His blood was shed for you. Come! 
and with a glad heart you will be able to exclaim 
with the Rev. Horatius Bonar: 



Christ's Invitation to the Burdened 197 

'I lay my sins on Jesus, 

The spotless Lamb of God; 
He bears them all, and frees us 

From the accursed load. 
I bring my guilt to Jesus, 

To wash my crimson stains 
White, in His blood most precious, 

Till not a spot remains. 

I lay my wants on Jesus; 

All fulness dwells in Him; 
He heals all my diseases, 

He doth my soul redeem: 
I lay my griefs on Jesus, 

My burdens and my cares; 
He from them all releases, 

He all my sorrows shares. 

I rest my soul on Jesus, 

This weary soul of mine; 
His right hand me embraces, 

I on His breast recline. 
I love the Name of Jesus, 

Emmanuel, Christ, the Lord; 
Like fragrance on the breezes 

His Name abroad is poured. 

I long to be like Jesus, 

Meek, loving, lowly, mild; 
I long to be like Jesus, 

The Father's holy Child: 
I long to be with Jesus 

Amid the heavenly throng, 
To sing with saints His praises, 

To learn the angels' song." 



THE APPROACHING DAY 

Heb. X:25. "And so much the more, as ye see the 
day drawing nigh." 

*fTPHE prayer-meeting is an institution of the 
past." That was the declaration, at a meet- 
ing of evangelical ministers, of the pastor of an 
Eastern church of over two thousand communicants. 
Twenty odd years before, when not much more 
than half as large, that church had hundreds at its 
mid-week devotional gatherings. But times have 
changed, so that, a few years ago, a friend of ours 
found only about thirty-five in attendance. In the 
earlier days there were plenty of men ready to take 
part; now, as is true of many another congregation, 
the pastor has to take up pretty much the whole 
hour with a lecture. The Methodist Episcopal 
Church used to require, of all its members, attend- 
ance at the class-meeting: but the General Confer- 
ence long since changed the Discipline, to suit the 
demands of the times, i.e., the growing worldly 
spirit of the age. Yes, alas! the pastor was right. 
So far as the mass of the members of our so-called 
198 



The Approaching Day 199 

Protestant churches are concerned, the prayer-meet- 
ing has indeed become "an institution of the past." 
But let us not lose sight of the fact that, wherever 
that is the case, genuine revivals of religion have 
likewise necessarily become "an institution of the 
past." The newly inducted pastor of a Congrega- 
tional church in Illinois was taken greatly by sur- 
prise one evening. "Will Mr. So-and-So please 
lead in prayer? But instead of the man, it was 
his wife who rose to her feet and led in prayer, her 
husband at the time being still unconverted. The 
man's early Scotch training, however, stayed by him, 
and so he always went with his Christian wife, not 
only to church, but to the prayer-meeting as well. 
It is almost needless to add, that he afterwards be- 
came a consistent disciple of our Lord. But the pas- 
tor evidently did not suppose that a man, who was 
not a Christian, would ever show himself in the 
prayer-meeting, unless something very unusual was 
going on. 

Although in these terrible times in which we live, 
there has doubtless been, in very many cases, a de- 
cided change for the better, yet it is to be feared 
that in a great many homes there is no family altar, 
and that not even a blessing is asked at the table, 
unless the minister happens to be present, to dis- 
charge the duty that properly devolves upon the 



200 The Humanity of the Christ 

head of the household. And when so many homes 
are almost prayerless, how can we expect a different 
state of things in our churches? Nevertheless the 
infallible Word of God solemnly warns us, in the 
very verse from which the text is taken, not to fol- 
low in the wake of the thoughtless multitude. "Not 
forsaking our own assembling together, as the cus- 
tom of some is, but exhorting one another." And 
the special reason which the Holy Spirit here gives 
us, why we should be faithful and diligent in this 
matter, is thus set forth in the words of the text, 
"And so much the more, as ve see the day drawing 
nigh." 

In order to be able to appreciate somewhat, the 
urgency with which this solemn exhortation comes 
to us, it is of the first importance that we inquire 
as to the import of the "day" here spoken of, and 
as to how we may "see" it "drawing nigh." 

In speaking of coming events both Old and New 
Testament writers frequently make use of the term 
"day." "A day of Jehovah of hosts" (Is. II:i2). 
"The day of vengeance of our God" (Is. LXI:2). 
"The day cometh, it burneth as a furnace" (Mai. 
IV:i). "The last day" (John VI :39, 40). "The 
day of wrath" (Rom. 11:5). "The day of salva- 
tion" (II. Cor. VI :a). "The day of judgment" 
(II. Pet. 111:7). "The day of God" (v. 12). 



The Approaching Day 201 

And now does the immediate context give us any 
clue, as to what "day" is particularly referred to 
in our text? At verses 12 and 13 of this tenth 
chapter, we read concerning the Lord Jesus Christ, 
our great High Priest, "But He, when He had of- 
fered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the 
right hand of God; henceforth expecting till His 
enemies be made the footstool of His feet." In 
verses 26 to 31, immediately following upon the 
words of the text, the certain and awful doom is 
foretold of him "who hath trodden under foot the 
Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the 
covenant, wherewith He was sanctified, an unholy 
thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of 
grace," concluding with these words of solemn im- 
port, "For we know Him that said, Vengeance be- 
longeth unto Me, I will recompense. And again, 
The Lord shall judge His people. It is a fearful 
thing to fall into the hands of the living God." To 
which must be added verses 36 and 37. "For ye 
have need of patience, that, having done the will 
of God, ye may receive the promise. 

For yet a very little while, 

He that cometh shall come, and shall not tarry." 

But the apostle, when he wrote this letter to the 
Hebrew Christians, did not divide it into chapters 
and verses; he wrote as any one else would write 



202 The Humanity of the Christ 

a letter, and to be fully understood it should be 
read right through from beginning to end. And so 
we may well look through the whole of it for a defi- 
nite answer to our query. 

The epistle begins, as you are aware, by setting 
forth the infinite superiority of our Lord over the 
angelic hosts. Right after this, at the beginning 
of chapter two, he declares the utter impossibility 
of escape of the neglecter of "so great a salvation" 
(v. 3), now that it has been proclaimed by the Lord 
Himself personally, with the added confirmation 
of God the Father, and of the Holy Spirit. 

Upon this follows the statement, in verse 5, that 
God has not put "the world to come," namely 
this earth, as it shall yet be inhabited by teeming, 
happy multitudes, during the coming millennial era, 
"subject unto angels." Contrarywise, he asserts, 
in the verses that immediately follow, that God has 
put absolutely "all things in subjection under" the 
Savior's "feet." And so, were there time, one might 
go through the whole of this truly wonderful epis- 
tle, which is so full of the past and yet future 
achievements of our adorable Redeemer, "The 
Apostle and High Priest of our confession" (Ch. 
Ill :i ) . We can, however, stop only to note two 
other passages. 

At chapter IX 127-28, i.e., right after the state- 



The Approaching Day 203 

ment that our Lord "now once at the end of the 
ages hath . . . been manifested to put away sin by 
the sacrifice of Himself," it is added, "And inasmuch 
as it is appointed unto men once to die, and after 
this cometh judgment; so Christ also, having been 
once offered to bear the sins of many, shall appear 
a second time, apart from sin," that is, without a 
sin-offering, "unto salvation." 

In chapter two, from which we have already 
quoted, it is plainly intimated, what Scripture else- 
where so fully affirms, namely, that the redeemed 
are to be partakers with Christ in His coming do- 
minion and glory, and that all others will be rigidly 
excluded from participation in their blessedness. 
And so we read in chapter XII 128-29, "Wherefore, 
receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us 
have grace, whereby," or, as in the margin to the 
old Version, "let us hold fast," in order that "we 
may offer service well-pleasing to God with rever- 
ence and awe : for our God is a consuming fire." 

We are thus inevitably brought to the conclusion 
that the "day" mentioned in the text must, in some 
way or other, refer to our Lord's future advent in 
glory, and to His coming millennial reign. And 
with this conclusion accords the entire New Testa- 
ment, from the beginning of the Gospel according 
to Matthew, to the very close of the Revelation 



204 The Humanity of the Christ 

given to the beloved disciple "in the isle that is 
called Patmos." Indeed the word "day," in these 
inspired writings, when applied to future events, al- 
most invariably refers to the coming again, and the 
beatific reign, of Him Who shall yet be crowned 
"King of Kings, and Lord of Lords" (Rev. 
XIX:i6). 

His coming again is expressly spoken of as His 
"day," as in I. Cor. 1 17-8, "So that ye come behind 
in no gift; waiting for the revelation of our Lord 
Jesus Christ; Who shall also confirm you unto the 
end, that ye be unreprovable in the day of our Lord 
Jesus Christ." In chapter V:5, "That the spirit may 
be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus." In II. 
Cor. 1: 14, "As also ye did acknowledge us in part, 
that we are your glorying, even as ye also are ours, 
in the day of our Lord Jesus." In Phil. 1:6, "Be- 
ing confident of this very thing, that He Who began 
a good work in you, will perfect it until the day 
of Jesus Christ." And in verse 10, "So that ye may 
approve the things that are excellent; that ye may 
be sincere and void of offence unto the day of 
Christ." In II. Thess. II :2, "To the end that ye 
be not quickly shaken from your mind, nor yet be 
troubled, ... as that the day of the Lord is just 
at hand." The Greek verb here used evkcrTrjicev, 
it should be observed, is altogether different in 



The Approaching Day 205 

meaning from rjjyLKev found in Matt. 111:2, and 
IV: 1 7, which means that the kingdom of heaven 
might come very soon, or be deferred for centuries 
to come. In Phil. II 115-16 we read, "That ye may 
become blameless and harmless, children of God 
without blemish, in the midst of a crooked and 
perverse generation, among whom ye are seen as 
lights in the world, holding forth the word of life; 
that I may have whereof to glory in the day of 
Christ, that I did not run in vain, neither labored 
in vain." 

To such as had but lately been converted to God 
from the darkness, the superstition, and the abom- 
inable idolatry of heathenism, the apostle writes, 
in I. Thess. I:8-io, "For from you hath sounded 
forth the word of the Lord, not only in Macedonia 
and Achaia, but in every place your faith to God- 
ward is gone forth; so that we need not to speak 
anything. For they themselves report concerning 
us what manner of entering in we had unto you; 
and how ye turned unto God from idols, to serve a 
living and true God ; and to wait for His Son from 
heaven, Whom He raised from the dead," i.e., from 
among the dead, "even Jesus, Who delivereth us 
from the wrath to come." 

With our sadly perverted and wholly unscrip- 
tural notions about this much-vaunted, but utterly 



206 The Humanity of the Christ 

unreal, moral and spiritual progress of the race, and 
as to this so-called modern civilization and enlight- 
enment, we have almost wholly lost sight of the 
fact, that the object of the present Gospel dispen- 
sation, as here set forth by the great apostle of the 
Gentiles, is just two-fold, viz., to turn men from 
the worship of dumb idols unto "a living and true 
God," and that they may turn their hearts and their 
eyes longingly toward heaven, for the return of the 
ascended Redeemer, i.e., "to wait for His Son from 
heaven." 

So thoroughly were the early disciples, Gentiles 
as well as Jews, instructed in regard to all this; so 
well did they understand that it was at the revela- 
tion, the coming again in power and great glory, of 
the Savior Whom they had learned to love and 
adore, that all their brightest hopes were to be real- 
ized, that the apostolic writers often refer to our 
Lord's second coming, without even mentioning 
His name ; simply referring to that blessed and glor- 
ious event, and all its attendant scenes of surpass- 
ing grandeur and glory, as "The day of redemp- 
tion," "That day," or simply, "The day." So we 
read in Eph. IV 130, "And grieve not the Holy 
Spirit of God, in Whom ye were sealed unto the 
day of redemption." It is to this "day of redemp- 
tion" that the apostle refers, in that wonderful out- 



The Approaching Day 207 

burst of sacred eloquence, in Rom. VIII: 18-25, 
where he exclaims, "For I reckon that the suffer- 
ings of this present time are not worthy to be com- 
pared with the glory which shall be revealed to us- 
ward." And then he tells us that the whole nether 
creation, which "groaneth and travaileth in pain 
together until now," as well as we ourselves, "who 
have the first-fruits of the Spirit," "itself also shall 
be delivered from the bondage of corruption, into' 
the liberty of the glory of the children of God." 
And it is expressly declared, in verse 23, that the 
redemption here spoken of, is not simply that of 
the soul, or spirit, which indeed is redeemed the 
moment the sinner turns to God in Christ, but "the 
redemption of our body," which can mean nothing 
less, and nothing else, than the bodily resurrection 
of the saints, when they shall appear perfect and 
glorified, in body, soul, and spirit, and worthy of 
full "adoption" (v. 15), and formal introduction, 
as children into the family of God! 

But to proceed. In many other places Holy Writ 
evidently refers to the day of Christ, the day of our 
redemption, in an offhand, matter-of-fact way, 
which takes for granted that those who are ad- 
dressed are perfectly familiar with the subject, 
e.g., II. Tim. 1: 12, "For which cause I suffer also 
these things: yet I am not ashamed; for I know 



208 The Humanity of the Christ 

Him Whom I have believed, and I am persuaded 
that He is able to guard that which I have com- 
mitted unto Him against that day" In verse 1 8, 
"The Lord grant unto him to find mercy of the 
Lord in that day" Ch. IV :8, "Henceforth there 
is laid up for me," kept in store, "the crown of 
righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, 
shall give to me at that day; and not to me only, but 
also to all them that have loved His appearing." 
In II. Thess. 1 7-8, it is declared that "the Lord 
Jesus" shall be revealed "from heaven with the an- 
gels of His power in flaming fire, rendering ven- 
geance to them that know not God, and to them 
that obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus" ; 
"when," as we are told in verse 10, "He shall 
come to be glorified in His saints, and to be mar- 
velled at in all them that believed ... in that 
day!' Rom. XIII:ii-I2, "And this, knowing the 
season, that already it is time for you to awake out 
of sleep: for now is salvation nearer to us," that 
is, its completion in the bliss and glory of the res- 
urrection morning, "for now is salvation nearer to 
us than when we first believed," namely, when first 
we gave ourselves to Christ. "The night is far 
spent, and the day is at hand: let us therefore cast 
off the works of darkness, and let us put on the 
armor of light." 



The Approaching Day 209 

In John VI:39, 40, 44, and 54 our Lord reiter- 
ates the promise of a glorious resurrection "at" or 
"in the last day." We quote verse 54, "He that 
eateth My flesh, and drinketh My blood, hath eter- 
nal life; and I will raise him up at the last day" 
In Acts 11:20 that coming day of wonders is spoken 
of after this manner, 

"The sun shall be turned into darkness, 
And the moon into blood, 
Before the day of the Lord come, 
That great and notable day." 

"And so much the more, as ye see the day draw- 
ing nigh." Surely we are not left in uncertainty 
as to what day is here referred to. Of one thing, 
however, we know absolutely nothing at all. "But 
of that day and hour knoweth no one, not even 
the angels of heaven, neither the Son, but the Father 
only" (Matt. XXIV 136). And at the close of the 
parable of the virgins our Lord adds the solemn 
admonition, "Watch therefore, for ye know not the 
day nor the hour" (Matt. XXV:i3). 

"Not forsaking our own assembling together, as 
the custom of some is, but exhorting one another; 
and so much the more, as ye see the day drawing 
nigh." 

Some one has given eleven excellent scriptural 



210 The Humanity of the Christ 

reasons for attending the weekly prayer-meeting: 
but, strange to say, the reason here given us by the 
Holy Spirit was entirely lost sight of. And yet 
surely, my brethren, we can "see the day drawing 
nigh" It does indeed seem that this is the very 
"last hour of the world's Saturday night." While 
we should beware that we do not undertake to set 
the exact time of the Lord's return, yet it is both 
our solemn duty, and our privilege as well, to try 
to "discern the signs of the times" (Matt. XVI 13), 
for our Lord of old rebuked the unbelieving Jews 
for failing to do that very thing. And these "signs 
of the times" are to be seen everywhere about us. 
Matt. XXIV 15-14. "For many shall come in My 
name, saying, I am the Christ ; and shall lead many 
astray. And ye shall hear of wars and rumors of 
wars; see that ye be not troubled: for these things 
must needs come to pass; but the end is not yet. 
For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom 
against kingdom; and there shall be famines and 
earthquakes in divers places. But all these things 
are the beginning of travail. Then shall they de- 
liver you up unto tribulation, and shall kill you ; and 
ye shall be hated of all the nations for My name's 
sake. And then shall many stumble, and shall de- 
liver up one another, and shall hate one another. 
And many false prophets shall arise, and shall lead 



The Approaching Day 211 

many astray. And because iniquity shall be multi- 
plied, the love of the many shall wax cold. But he 
that endureth to the end, the same shall be saved. 
And this Gospel of the kingdom shall be preached 
in the whole world for a testimony unto all the na- 
tions; and then shall the end come." Let this be 
distinctly understood. Neither here, in Matt. 
XXIV: 14, nor elsewhere, does our Lord ever say a 
word as to the end of the world. As you will find 
in the margin to Matt. XXVIII 120, the only 
proper translation of that phrase is, "The consum- 
mation of the age." He ever and always speaks of 
the end of the present dispensation, or economy, of 
Divine grace, which began with His first coming, 
when the Mosaic dispensation ended, and will itself 
come to an end when He returns in glory to inaugu- 
rate His millennial kingdom. Luke XXI :g, 25-26. 
"And when ye shall hear of wars and tumults, be 
not terrified: for these things must needs come to 
pass first; but the end is not immediately. . . . 
And there shall be signs in sun and moon and stars; 
and upon the earth distress of nations, in perplexity 
for the roaring of the sea and the billows; men 
fainting for fear, and for expectation of the things 
which are coming on the world: for the powers of 
the heavens shall be shaken." II. Tim. Ill n-5. 
"But know this, that in the last days grievous times 



212 The Humanity of the Christ 

shall come. For men shall be lovers of self, lovers 
of money, boastful, haughty, railers, disobedient to 
parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affec- 
tion, implacable, slanderers, without self-control, 
fierce, no lovers of good, traitors, headstrong, puffed 
up, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God; 
holding a form of godliness, but having denied the 
power thereof." Verses 12-13. "Yea, and all that 
would live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer perse- 
cution. But evil men and impostors shall wax worse 
and worse, deceiving and being deceived." II. Pet. 
111:3-4. "Knowing this first, that in the last days 
mockers shall come with mockery, walking after 
their own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of 
His coming? for, from the day that the fathers fell 
asleep, all things continue as they were from the 
beginning of the creation." 

Are you still out of Christ? O turn to Him, 
while yet it is a day of grace! To-morrow it may 
be too late! 

Fellow-Christians, listen to the comforting, the 
blessed assurance of our adorable Redeemer. "But 
when these things begin to come to pass, look up, 
and lift up your heads; because your redemption 
draweth nigh" (Luke XXI 128). Oh! let us not 
be discouraged, however dark the world about us 
may be. We serve an almighty Savior, and He will 



The Approaching Day 213 

yet ride forth gloriously, conquering and to con- 
quer. 

This is a sad, and yet also a glorious era, for it 
is the harbinger of the coming of the King of day, 
at Whose appearing the gloom and the darkness of 
earth, its ignorance and its superstition, its folly and 
its crime, shall for ever pass away, and when "all 
the earth shall be filled with the glory of Jehovah" 
(Num. XIV :2i). This is "the day of His prepa- 
ration" (Nah. 11:3). The railroad, the steam- 
boat, the electric car, the telegraph, the telephone, 
the automobile, the aeroplane, the thousand and one 
inventions and discoveries of these latter days, show 
us what a paradisiacal state this world will be in, 
when once Satan and his accursed hordes have been 
cast out, and when the nations "shall . . . learn 
war" no "more." And when "they shall sit every 
man under his vine and under his fig-tree ; and none 
shall make them afraid: for the mouth of Jehovah 
of hosts hath spoken it" (Mic. IV:3-4). 

And you and I, dear hearer, if we are faithful 
unto the end, are then to reign with Christ over the 
nations in the flesh! While the Bridegroom tar- 
rieth, we are left here for yet a little season, to do 
what we may for the glory of God, and for the good 
of our fellow-men. Let us then be up and doing, 
"Redeeming the time, because the days are evil" 



214 The Humanity of the Christ 

(Eph. V:i6). "The Lord is at hand. In nothing 
be anxious; but in everything by prayer and sup- 
plication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be 
made known unto God" (Phil. IV 15-6). As says 
the poet: 

"We are living, we are dwelling, 
In a grand and awful time; 
In an age on ages telling; 
To be living is sublime!" 

"But watch ye at every season, making suppli- 
cation, that ye may prevail to escape all these 
things that shall come to pass, and to stand before 
the Son of Man" (Luke XXI 136). Beloved hear- 
ers, while yet the Lord delayeth His coming, let us 
this hour highly and solemnly resolve, that we will 
no longer treat our mid-week meeting for^ confer- 
ence and prayer as though it were a matter of little 
concern, whether we or our children attend it or 
not. For little reason have we to expect that souls 
will continue to be converted under the preaching 
of the Word, and by all the means of grace that 
we here enjoy, if we turn our backs upon the prayer- 
meeting, which is in very deed the spiritual ther- 
mometer of the church; and which should ever be, 
for every congregation of believers, a joyous, blessed 
weekly family gathering of both old and young. In 



The Approaching Day 215 

many a church, where that is the case, they never, 
or scarce ever, have a communion season, without 
some one or more souls being added to them of 
''those that were saved" (Acts 11:47). May God 
of His infinite mercy grant that from now on such 
may be the case among us, and then we'll have a 
revival the whole year round! 



THE RESTORATION AND REDEMPTION 
OF ISRAEL 

Ps. CII:ii-i8. 

My days are like a shadow that declineth; 
And I am withered like grass. 
But Thou, O Jehovah, wilt abide for ever; 
And Thy memorial name unto all generations. 
Thou wilt arise, and have mercy upon Zion; 
For it is time to have pity upon her, 
Yea, the set time is come. 
For Thy servants take pleasure in her stones, 
And have pity upon her dust. 
So the nations shall fear the name of Jehovah, 
And all the kings of the earth Thy glory. 
For Jehovah hath built up Zion; 
He hath appeared in His glory. 
He hath regarded the prayer of the destitute, 
And hath not despised their prayer. 
This shall be written for the generation to come; 
And a people which shall be created shall praise 
Jehovah." 

'TPHAT notorious unbeliever, Frederick the Great 

of Prussia, once asked his pious chaplain for the 

evidence, in few words, of the truth of Christianity. 

The chaplain answered in one word : — "Sire, Israel." 

216 



Restoration and Redemption of Israel 217 

Marvelous has been Israel's history. "And thou 
shalt answer and say before Jehovah thy God," 
that is, as the pious Israelite brought an offering of 
the first fruits of the ground unto Jehovah, "A 
Syrian ready to perish was my father; and he went 
down into Egypt, and sojourned there, few in num- 
ber; and he became there a nation, great, mighty, 
and populous" (Deut. XXVI .*5). Exclaimed that 
false-hearted prophet Balaam, when the Spirit of 
God compelled him to bless the nation whom he had 
been hired to curse, 

"From Aram hath Balak brought me, 

The king of Moab from the mountains of the 

East: 
Come, curse me Jacob, 
And come, defy Israel. 

How shall I curse, whom God hath not cursed? 
And how shall I defy, whom Jehovah hath not 

defied ? 
For from the top of the rocks I see him, 
And from the hills I behold him: 
ho, it is a people that dwelleth alone, 
And shall not be reckoned among the nations. 
Who can count the dust of Jacob, 
Or number the fourth part of Israel? 
Let me die the death of the righteous, 
And let my last end be like his!" 

(Num. XXIII :7-io.) 



218 The Humanity of the Christ 

Israel's very existence to this day is in itself the 
most wonderful corroboration of the Pentateuch, 
and indeed of all Scripture. 

And yet very much depends upon our interpret- 
ing Scripture consistently. 

Let it be said, first of all, that there is no warrant 
whatever for allegorizing such plain geographical 
terms as Judah, Ephraim, Gilead, Lebanon, the 
mountains of Israel, etc. The New Testament 
never allegorizes or spiritualizes a single one of 
them. 

Said a Jew, "You Christians are willing enough 
to let us have the curses, but you want all the bless- 
ings yourselves." The charge was but too true, 
alas! And it is the very way too to countenance 
these infidel vagaries that the Bible does not mean 
just exactly what it says. 

Let it be added right here that the whole argu- 
ment against the plain, grammatical, and historical 
interpretation of prophecy is absolutely groundless. 
Why did the Jews allegorize Isaiah LIII? Had they 
accepted that wonderful chapter, and other like 
Scriptures, in their plain, obvious meaning, they 
would have been compelled to acknowledge that 
Jesus of Nazareth was indeed their Heaven-sent 
Messiah. Multitudes of Christian people seem just 
about as anxious to get rid of the blessed doctrine 



Restoration and Redemption of Israel 219 

of our Lord's ever imminent advent, and so they 
treat the prophecies that relate to His second com- 
ing in precisely the same way, e.g., Matt. XXIV 144, 
"Therefore be ye also ready; for in an hour that 
ye think not the Son of Man cometh." "Oh, that 
means when a person dies." No, it means noth- 
ing of the sort. Dan. VII 113-14 tells us about the 
coming of the Son of Man. "I saw in the night 
visions, and, behold, there came with the clouds of 
heaven one like unto a Son of Man, and He came 
even to the Ancient of Days, and they brought 
Him near before Him. And there was given Him 
dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all the 
peoples, nations, and languages should serve Him: 
His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which 
shall not pass away, and His kingdom that which 
shall not be destroyed." In Matt. XXVI '.63 -64 we 
find our Lord's own interpretation of what He 
meant when He spoke about His coming as the Son 
of Man. Standing before the high court of the 
Jews, and to compel Him, as it were, to tell those 
unscrupulous Jewish rulers, who were vainly try- 
ing to find some pretext to put Him to an ignomin- 
ious death, who He was, "the high priest" finally 
"said unto Him, I adjure Thee by the living God, 
that Thou tell us whether Thou art the Christ, the 
Son of God." Now mark our Lord's answer, in 



220 The Humanity of the Christ 

which He not only admitted that He was the Son 
of God; but, moreover, by His direct reference to 
the prophecy of Daniel, which we have just quoted, 
gave them, as they well understood, what would one 
day be proof positive to all the world, that He was 
indeed the Christ of God. "Jesus saith unto him, 
Thou hast said : nevertheless I say unto you, Hence- 
forth ye shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right 
hand of Power, and coming on the clouds of 
heaven." "The Son of Man came," first of all, 
"to give His life a ransom for many" (Matt. XX: 
28). Where is there the slightest proof, from Holy 
Writ, that He has been journeying to and fro be- 
tween this earth and the highest heavens during all 
these centuries, to convoy the spirits of believers 
from earth to the realms of bliss? Oh, no, that is 
the work of His angelic messengers, even as of old 
they carried the beggar Lazarus, when he died, "into 
Abraham's bosom" (Luke XVI 122). He Himself 
has been sitting meanwhile "on the right hand of 
God" the Father Almighty, "henceforth expecting 
till His enemies be made the footstool of His feet" 
(Heb. X:i2, 13); and then, and not until then, 
shall He "appear a second time, apart from sin," 
that is, without a sin-offering, "to them that wait 
for Him, unto salvation" (Ch. IX:28). 

Providence has in our day again utterly upset 



Restoration and Redemption of Israel 221 

many of these fine-spun theories. What has become 
of our peace societies and schemes of arbitration, 
conceived often from the noblest of motives? Just 
think of the two Peace Conferences, held at The 
Hague in 1899 an d hi J 907> an °\ by wa Y of con ~ 
trast, of the present state of Europe and of the 
world at large. It isn't so many years ago that we 
were all horrified by the tales of woe that reached 
us from far off Armenia; when not one of the 
Great Powers of Europe seemingly dared to attempt 
to put an effectual stop to the outrageous acts of the 
unspeakable Turk. And since the outbreak of the 
great war, now at last brought to a sudden close, 
the world has stood aghast at the way in which the 
present Turkish government — with the evident con- 
sent of Germany, if indeed the infamous Kaiser and 
his accursed military satellites did not set them on 
— how it set deliberately at work to exterminate 
both the Armenians and the Syrians. What, alas! 
has been going on in the world since that first fa- 
mous Conference at The Hague ended its deliber- 
ations? For these past four years and more the 
great nations of Europe, and latterly even our own 
beloved Republic, and pretty nearly all the rest of 
mankind, have been engaged in a life and death 
struggle between the spirit of Democracy, and one 
of the most ruthless and demoniac attempts the 



222 The Humanity of the Christ 

world has ever witnessed to throttle the liberties of 
mankind. Let us devoutly thank God that this 
awful agony is at an end ! But no one knows as yet 
what will be the final outcome of it all. Ah! it is 
vain, dear hearers, to look for abiding peace on the 
earth, until Satan and his wicked hordes shall have 
been banished from the abodes of men, when "The 
kingdom of the world" shall have "become the king- 
dom of our Lord, and of His Christ ; and He shall 
reign for ever and ever," i.e., as in the Greek, "unto 
the ages of the ages" (Rev. XI:i5). 

If we are not to be all at sea in regard to the 
things that are coming upon the earth, then we must 
learn to interpret prophecy by the very same rules 
that everybody applies to all other parts of Scrip- 
ture, or to any other writing. 

And no one can possibly gain an intelligent under- 
standing of the future history of our race, and of 
this globe, who presumes to leave the descendants 
of God's ancient covenant people out of the account. 
But in considering the future destiny of the He- 
brew nation, we must by no means lose sight of 
the definite and sweeping terms of the Abrahamic 
covenant. It included both temporal and spiritual 
blessings for the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and 
Jacob, and for their lineal descendants to the re- 
motest generation, just as well, or rather, far more 



Restoration and Redemption of Israel 223 

expressly than spiritual blessings for the Gentile 
nations. These latter were indeed included, and 
very definitely too; still they were, and are to this 
day, not primary, but secondary. "Salvation is from 
the Jews" (John IV:22). "Who are Israelites; 
whose is the adoption, and the glory, and the cove- 
nants, and the giving of the law, and the service of 
God, and the promises; whose are the fathers, and 
of whom is Christ as concerning the flesh, Who is 
over all, God blessed for ever. Amen" (Rom. 
1X14-5). "Know therefore that they that are of 
faith, the same are sons of Abraham. And the 
Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the 
Gentiles by faith, preached the Gospel beforehand 
unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all the nations 
be blessed. So then they that are of faith are 
blessed with the faithful Abraham. . . . That upon 
the Gentiles might come the blessing of Abraham 
in Christ Jesus; that we might receive the promise 
of the Spirit through faith. . . . And if ye are 
Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, heirs accord- 
ing to promise" (Gal. 111:7-9, 14, 29). 

What now are some of the predictions of Holy 
Writ in regard to this chosen people of God ? While 
the earth abides Israel can never cease to exist as 
a distinct people. "Shall not be reckoned among 
the nations" (Num. XXIII 19). "Therefore fear 



224 The Humanity of the Christ 

thou not, O Jacob My servant, saith Jehovah; 
neither be dismayed, O Israel: for, lo, I will save 
thee from afar, and thy seed from the land of their 
captivity; and Jacob shall return, and shall be quiet 
and at ease, and none shall make him afraid. For 
I am with thee, saith Jehovah, to save thee: for 
I will make a full end of all the nations whither 
I have scattered thee, but I will not make a full 
end of thee; but I will correct thee in measure, 
and will in no wise leave thee unpunished" (Jer. 
XXX:ioii). All of this is repeated in Ch. 
XLVI :27-28. "Behold, the eyes of the Lord Jeho- 
vah are upon the sinful kingdom, and I will destroy 
it from off the face of the earth ; save that I will not 
utterly destroy the house of Jacob, saith Jehovah. 
For, lo, I will command, and I will sift the house of 
Israel among all the nations, like as grain is sifted 
in a sieve, yet shall not the least kernel fall upon 
the earth. . . . And I will bring back the captivity 
of My people Israel, and they shall build the waste 
cities, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vine- 
yards, and drink the wine thereof; they shall also 
make gardens, and eat the fruit of them. And I 
will plant them upon their land, and they shall no 
more be plucked up out of their land which I have 
given them, saith Jehovah thy God" (Amos IX :8- 
9, 14-15). It is as a separate nation that Israel 



Restoration and Redemption of Israel 225 

shall yet again possess the land of their fathers. 
"Therefore say, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: 
Whereas I have removed them far off among the 
nations, and whereas I have scattered them among 
the countries, yet will I be to them a sanctuary for 
a little while in the countries whither they are come. 
Therefore say, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah : I will 
gather you from the peoples, and assemble you out 
of the countries where ye have been scattered, and 
I will give you the land of Israel" (Eze. XI: 16- 

17). 

This is to be an altogether different return from 
that from Babylon under Zerubbabel and the high 
priest Joshua, and those that followed in after years 
with Ezra the scribe and Nehemiah the governor, 
for then they shall come, not from any one par- 
ticular city or country, but from all the ends of the 
earth. The present Zionist movement is doubtless 
designed to be preparatory to the great consumma- 
tion, though far from being any part of the final 
and triumphant ingathering of Israel; for they are 
now going back in their unbelief and impenitence, 
whereas in the end they will return with renewed 
hearts and in the triumph of faith. "And it shall 
come to pass in that day, that the Lord will set 
His hand again the second time to recover the rem- 
nant of His people, that shall remain, from Assyria, 



226 The Humanity of the Christ 

and from Egypt, and from Pathros, and from Cush, 
and from Elam, and from Shinar, and from Ha- 
math, and from the islands of the sea. And He 
will set up an ensign for the nations, and will as- 
semble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together 
the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the 
earth. . . . And Jehovah will utterly destroy the 
tongue of the Egyptian sea; and with His scorching 
wind will He wave His hand over the River," i.e., 
the Euphrates, "and will smite it into seven streams, 
and cause men to march over dryshod. And there 
shall be a highway for the remnant of His people, 
that shall remain, from Assyria; like as there was 
for Israel in the day that he came up out of the land 
of Egypt" (Is. XI:n-i2, 15-16). "And they shall 
come thither, and they shall take away all the de- 
testable things thereof and all the abominations 
thereof from thence. And I will give them one 
heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and 
I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and 
will give them a heart of flesh ; that they may walk 
in My statutes, and keep Mine ordinances, and do 
them: and they shall be My people, and I will be 
their God" (Eze. XI: 18-20). "And in that day 
thou shalt say, I will give thanks unto Thee, O Je- 
hovah ; for though Thou wast angry with me, Thine 
anger is turned away, and Thou comfortest me. 



Restoration and Redemption of Israel 227 

Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and will 
not be afraid: for Jehovah, even Jehovah, is my 
strength and song; and He is become my salvation" 
(Is. XII: 1-2). As appears from Isaiah XI, quoted 
above, Israel's final return to the land of promise 
will be no less miraculous than their deliverance 
from Egyptian bondage. 

But something else is going to happen, even in 
connection with this prospective preliminary and 
partial return, which will be like to their going 
up out of the land of Egypt. When God com- 
manded Moses, at the burning bush, to go and de- 
liver His people, He said to him, "And I will give 
this people favor in the sight of the Egyptians: and 
it shall come to pass, that, when ye go, ye shall not 
go empty : but every woman shall ask of her neigh- 
bor, and of her that sojourneth in her house, jewels 
of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment: and ye 
shall put them upon your sons, and upon your 
daughters; and ye shall despoil the Egyptians" (Ex. 
111:21-22). They did not "borrow," as the old 
English version has it; but, as God commanded 
them to do, "They asked of the Egyptians jewels of 
silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment: and Jeho- 
vah gave the people favor in the sight of the Egyp- 
tians, so that they let them have what they asked. 
And they despoiled the Egyptians" (Ex. XII :35- 



228 The Humanity of the Christ 

36). For generations the Jewish people were 
trampled upon, pillaged, and brutally slaughtered 
almost everywhere the wide world over. During 
the past century, however, they have in many coun- 
tries enjoyed comparative immunity from wanton 
insult and injury, and of late they are largely amass- 
ing the wealth of the nations. When once a goodly 
portion of them are fairly settled in Palestine, they 
will soon become immensely wealthy, so that, when 
the Antichrist appears, it will only be a matter of 
a few years before he fixes his evil eye on them, and 
when he will gather the nations against them, "to 
take the prey, to carry away silver and gold, to take 
away cattle and goods, to take great spoil" (Eze. 
XXXVIII 113). 

Now, as the time of Israel's redemption is mani- 
festly drawing nigh, God is, in His overruling provi- 
dence, stirring up the hearts of His ancient covenant 
people with an intense longing for the land of their 
fathers. The editor of a Jewish journal published 
in England, though personally opposed to the return 
of his people to Palestine, yet frankly admitted, many 
years ago, that "You might as well try to stem the 
Atlantic Ocean," as to undertake to keep them from 
going back when once the way is fairly open. And 
millions of dollars are being raised by them, in this 
and other lands, to aid those who desire to go. Now 



Restoration and Redemption of Israel 229 

that the abominable Turk has at length been driven 
out, the Jews will soon be going there en masse. 
Many prosperous Jewish farming colonies were got 
under way before the outbreak of the late gigantic 
struggle, Hebrew schools of various grades were also 
started ; and in the month of October, in this year of 
grace 19 18, the corner-stone of the prospective He- 
brew University of Jerusalem, was laid on the 
Mount of Olives, consisting of twelve stones, repre- 
senting the twelve tribes of Israel, and the v ancient 
Hebrew will soon again be the every-day spoken lan- 
guage of Palestine! 

We are wont to talk of the ten "lost tribes" ; but 
they were never altogether lost. After the seces- 
sion of the ten tribes under Jeroboam, we learn that, 
at different times, there were many who gave up 
the inheritance of their fathers, and resorted to the 
house of David. This exodus began from the very 
start. "And the priests and the Levites that were 
in all Israel resorted to him," that is, to Rehoboam, 
"out of all their border. For the Levites left their 
suburbs and their possession, and came to Judah 
and Jerusalem : for Jeroboam and his sons cast them 
off, that they should not execute the priest's office 
unto Jehovah. . . . And after them, out of all the 
tribes of Israel, such as set their hearts to seek Je- 
hovah, the God of Israel, came to Jerusalem to sac- 



230 The Humanity of the Christ 

rifice unto Jehovah, the God of their fathers. So 
they strengthened the kingdom of Judah, and made 
Rehoboam the son of Solomon strong. . . . And 
he," i.e., Asa, king of Judah, "gathered all Judah 
and Benjamin, and them that sojourned with them 
out of Ephraim and Manasseh, and out of Simeon: 
for they fell to him out of Israel in abundance, when 
they saw that Jehovah his God was with him. . . . 
So they established a decree to make proclamation 
throughout all Israel, from Beersheba even to Dan, 
that they should come to keep the passover unto 
Jehovah, the God of Israel, at Jerusalem: for they 
had not kept it in great numbers in such sort as it is 
written. ... So the posts" of king Hezekiah 
"passed from city to city through the country of 
Ephraim and Manasseh, even unto Zebulun: but 
they laughed them to scorn, and mocked them. 
Nevertheless certain men of Asher and Manasseh, 
and of Zebulun, humbled themselves, and came to 
Jerusalem. . . . For a multitude of the people, even 
many of Ephraim and Manasseh, Issachar and Zeb- 
ulun, had not cleansed themselves, yet did they eat 
the passover otherwise than it is written. For 
Hezekiah had prayed for them, saying, The good 
Jehovah pardon every one that setteth his heart to 
seek God, Jehovah, the God of his fathers, though 
he be not cleansed according to the purification of 



Restoration and Redemption of Israel 231 

the sanctuary. And Jehovah hearkened to Heze- 
kiah, and healed the people" (II. Chron. XI 113-14, 
16-17; XV :g; XXX -.5, 10-11, 18-20). And who 
was that aged widow, who, "coming up at that very- 
hour," when the child Jesus was brought into the 
temple, "gave thanks unto God, and spake of Him 
to all them that were looking for the redemption of 
Jerusalem"? She "was Anna, a prophetess, the 
daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher" (Luke 
11:38, 36). Some years ago there were represen- 
tatives of at least five tribes in the holy land. And 
they will all get there in God's own good time. In 
1899 a remarkable delegate appeared at the Zionist 
Congress at Basle. He came from Russia, and was 
a representative of the Caucasian Jewish Kubans, 
inhabitants of the high Caucasian mountains, re- 
nowned for their great strength. They are terrible 
in war on horseback. The Cossacks are even afraid 
of these Jewish heroes. They do not know much 
of Judaism, only their hearts are Jewish. They 
believe that they belong to the ten tribes. Their 
love for Zion has not been extinguished during near- 
ly three thousand years. They still want to go to 
the land of Israel. On the isle of Cyprus, in the 
Mediterranean Sea, to which the apostle Paul and 
his companions went from Antioch, in Syria, as they 
started on their first foreign missionary tour, which 



232 The Humanity of the Christ 

island the Turkish government ceded to England 
in 1878, many Jews are waiting for a fair oppor- 
tunity to go in and possess the land of promise. 
Tens of thousands had already gone back from dif- 
ferent parts of Europe, and had formed settlements 
here and there, before this dreadful war suddenly 
brought matters to a halt. 

For their last loan to the Turkish government 
the Rothschilds were reported at the time to have 
taken a mortgage on the whole of Palestine. We 
have all heard of the present Zionist movement, 
already referred to, which has aroused the enthu- 
siasm, and engaged the active interest, of the ortho- 
dox Jews throughout the world. For a good many 
years an annual conference of these Zionists — 
Israelites who are endeavoring to regain possession 
of Palestine for their own people — has been held in 
Europe. Large gatherings have likewise been held 
in the city of Chicago, in Boston, and elsewhere, one 
of them with representatives from every State in the 
Union, many from Canada, and even a special dele- 
gate from South Africa. Our self-styled liberal, 
or modern, Jews, who have practically renounced 
the faith of their fathers, have been bitterly opposed 
to this movement. The United Hebrew Congre- 
gations of Richmond, Virginia, in December, 1899, 
declared themselves unalterably opposed to Zionism. 



Restoration and Redemption of Israel 233 

"The Jews," said they, "are not a nation; they are 
a religious community. America is our Zion." And 
their Cincinnati organ, The American Israelite ', in 
its issue of August 10, 1899, contained the follow- 
ing editorial note, "The next, and we hope and 
almost believe, the last, Zionist Congress will meet 
in Basle, Switzerland, next Tuesday." But this 
work is evidently of God, and these modern Saddu- 
cees will find that, with all their opposition and 
ridicule, they "will not be able to overthrow" it 
(Acts V:39). 

The Jews have often sought to regain possession 
of the holy city. The Roman emperor, Julian the 
Apostate, who reigned from 361 to 363 A.D., even 
ordered them to rebuild the temple: but, though 
backed up by the authority and power of the em- 
pire, the attempt miserably failed. Our Lord had 
declared that Jerusalem would "be trodden down of 
the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be ful- 
filled" (Luke XXI 124). Julian thought that he 
could set aside and undo that prophetic declaration 
of the world's Redeemer, by helping the Jews to 
rebuild their temple; but fire leaped out of the 
ground, and compelled the workmen to desist. 

"The times of the Gentiles" began with the over- 
throw of the Jewish State by Nebuchadnezzar, and 
they are to continue until Israel takes her Heaven- 



234 The Humanity of the Christ 

appointed place as the leader of the nations, a po- 
sition which God promised to that people, on condi- 
tion of their absolute loyalty and obedience, when 
He entered into covenant with them at mount 
Sinai. "And Moses went up unto God, and Jeho- 
vah called unto him out of the mountain, saying, 
Thus shalt thou say to the house of Jacob, and 
tell the children of Israel: Ye have seen what I 
did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on 
eagles' wings, and brought you unto Myself. Now 
therefore, if ye will obey My voice indeed, and keep 
My covenant, then ye shall be Mine own possession 
from among all peoples; for all the earth is Mine: 
and ye shall be unto Me a kingdom of priests, and 
a holy nation" (Ex. XIX:3-6). These "times" 
of Gentile dominion may soon come to an end. And 
if that be so, then Israel's wanderings are also about 
to come to an end. 

It should be borne in mind, indeed, in this con- 
nection, that the present movement, like all previous 
attempts to regain possession of Jerusalem and of 
all the land of Canaan, is being undertaken in a 
spirit of unbelief; for these orthodox Jews are by no 
means ready to acknowledge our blessed Redeemer 
as their Lord and King. They are still looking for 
a Messiah Who has never yet appeared in the flesh. 
Nevertheless it is to a remnant of these returning 



Restoration and Redemption of Israel 235 

Jews, who are even now .so steadfastly setting their 
faces Zionward, that our Lord and Savior Jesus 
Christ will yet show Himself, in the hour of their 
sore distress, for their deliverance and salvation. 
"For I say unto you, Ye shall not see Me hence- 
forth, till ye shall say, Blessed is He that cometh 
in the name of the Lord" (Matt. XXIII 139). 
"And I will pour upon the house of David, and 
upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of 
grace and of supplication ; and they shall look upon 
Me Whom they have pierced ; and they shall mourn 
for Him, as one mourneth for his only son, and 
shall be in bitterness for Him, as one that is in bit- 
terness for his first-born. . . . Then shall Jehovah 
go forth, and fight against those nations, as when 
He fought in the day of battle. And His feet shall 
stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which 
is before Jerusalem on the east; and the mount of 
Olives shall be cleft in the midst thereof toward the 
east and toward the west, and there shall be a very 
great valley, and half of the mountain shall remove 
toward the north, and half of it toward the south. 
And ye shall flee by the valley of My mountains; 
for the valley of the mountains shall reach unto 
Azel; yea, ye shall flee, like as ye fled from before 
the earthquake, in the days of Uzziah, king of Ju- 
dah; and Jehovah my God shall come, and all the 



236 The Humanity of the Christ 

holy ones with Thee" (Zech. XII: 10; XIV:3-5>. 

And Israel's final and complete restoration, and 
the conversion of the world, need not be looked 
for until after all that has come to pass. See Is. 
II:i- 4 ; Micah IV:i- 4 ; Zech. XII and XIV; Rom. 
XI, etc. 

There is yet another respect in which history will 
again repeat itself. Ancient Egypt at last became 
envious of Israel's growth, and so they afflicted the 
people with cruel bondage, and even tried to kill off 
their male infants. See Ex. I. So too will the na- 
tions envy Israel, when the people shall have become 
re-established in Palestine, as is clearly foretold in 
Joel III and Zech. XIV, but especially in Eze. 
XXXVIII. Surprising premonitions of all that 
we have had in recent years, in the bitter enmity 
against the Jews, that has shown itself in France 
and Germany, as well as in the appalling persecu- 
tions to which they have been subjected in Russia 
and elsewhere. 

After a partial restoration, which it would seem 
will now soon be brought about, there will come 
suffering and despair, such as they have never yet 
had to endure, to be followed by a sudden and 
marvelous deliverance, as we read in Jer. XXX 17. 
— "Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like 
it: it is even the time of Jacob's trouble; but he 



Restoration and Redemption of Israel 237 

shall be saved out of it." And thus will Israel 
at last be brought to repentance. See Eze. XX 133- 
44; XXXVI :32; Zech. X:6-io; XII 19-14; Joel 
III 119-21. And compare Eze. XVI 162-63 with Ps. 
CXXX 13-4. They have had the curses, alas ! See 
Deut. XXVIII. They shall also have the blessings. 
"And so all Israel shall be saved : even as it is writ- 
ten: 

There shall come out of Zion the Deliverer: 
He shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: 
And this is My covenant unto them, 
When I shall take away their sins." 

(Rom. XI 126-27.) 

"My days are like a shadow that declineth; 
And I am withered like grass." 

Such is the instability and brevity of man's earth- 
ly estate, as the psalmist humbly confesses in our 
text. But he turns his eyes heavenward, and ex- 
claims : 

"But Thou, O Jehovah, wilt abide for ever; 
And Thy memorial name unto all generations." 

And then the Holy Spirit leads him to look down 
along the vista of time, and beyond the ages of his 
people's waywardness and wanderings, to that 
blessed epoch for which all nature sighs, when 



238 The Humanity of the Christ 

Jehovah, the God of Israel, will indeed prove Him- 
self to be "The faithful God, Who keepeth cove- 
nant and lovingkindness with them that love Him 
and keep His commandments to a thousand genera- 
tions" (Deut. VII :g). And he as confidently af- 
firms, as though it were already a matter of history: 

"Thou wilt arise, and have mercy upon Zion; 
For it is time to have pity upon her, 
Yea, the set time is come." 

And the prophet-psalmist adds a reason for, as 
well as a sign of, that coming day of wonders, — 

"For Thy servants take pleasure in her stones, 
And have pity upon her dust." 

Previous to the last century very little was done 
by the Lord's people for the salvation of Israel, and 
little concerned were they in the re-establishment 
of the Hebrew commonwealth. But all this has 
greatly changed. Christian people are now, in many 
ways, seeking to promote the present and eternal 
well-being of the once almost universally despised 
and persecuted nation. Tens of thousands of Jews 
have, moreover, been savingly converted to God, in- 
dicating what a marvelous change will come over 
that people, when the Spirit of God shall come upon 
them in the plenitude of His power. 



Restoration and Redemption of Israel 239 

"So the nations shall fear the name of Jehovah, 
And all the kings of the earth Thy glory. 
For Jehovah hath built up Zion; 
He hath appeared in His glory. 
He hath regarded the prayer of the destitute, 
And hath not despised their prayer. 
This shall be written for the generation to come; 
And a people which shall be created shall praise 
Jehovah." 

As said London's great preacher, the Rev. Charles 
Haddon Spurgeon, Jerusalem's "ultimate resurrec- 
tion . . . will be one of the prodigies of history." * 
In a marvelous way will our God yet prove His 
faithfulness, and that in the sight of all the nations 
of the earth, to the covenant into which He so gra- 
ciously entered with Abraham, with Isaac, and with 
Jacob, and through them with their posterity to the 
latest generation. An aged Jewish rabbi, at Grand 
Rapids, Michigan, was once spoken to in disparage- 
ment of some good people, who were holding some 
rather noisy meetings. "Don't say anything against 
these people," he said; "if I believed that Jesus of 
Nazareth was the Messiah, I'd go shouting up and 
down these streets day and night!" Ah! how that 
terrified, despairing remnant of Hebrews, for whose 
deliverance from the crushing power of the Anti- 

1 The Treasury of David, by C. H. Spurgeon, Vol. IV, 
page 423. 



240 The Humanity of the Christ 

christ, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will vis- 
ibly descend to this earth, accompanied by His 
glorified saints ; how, like that suddenly startled and 
converted persecutor, Saul of Tarsus, will they 
hasten to all the ends of the earth, with the blessed 
and joyful tidings, that they themselves have looked 
upon Him Whom they had pierced, and that Jesus 
of Nazareth is in very deed their Messiah, the King 
of Israel, the Savior of the world! And with what 
glad acclaim will both people and rulers of every 
clime and nation, aid their Jewish friends and 
neighbors to return with these messengers of peace 
and salvation, to the land of their fathers, as is so 
graphically foretold in the nth and 49th chapters 
of Isaiah. "Behold, the days come, saith Jehovah, 
that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, 
and He shall reign as King and deal wisely, and 
shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. 
In His days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall 
dwell safely ; and this is His name whereby He shall 
be called : Jehovah our righteousness. Therefore, be- 
hold, the days come, saith Jehovah, that they shall 
no more say, As Jehovah liveth, Who brought up 
the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt ; but, 
As Jehovah liveth, Who brought up and Who led 
the seed of the house of Israel out of the north 
country, and from all the countries whither I had 



Restoration and Redemption of Israel 241 

driven them. And they shall dwell in their own 
land" (Jer. XXIII :5-8). 

And thus will Israel's final redemption, as we 
read in Rom. XI 115, be as "life from the dead" to 
this sin-sick and sin-cursed race of ours, for then 
"many nations," as both Isaiah and Micah declare, 
"shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the 
mountains of Jehovah, and to the house of the God 
of Jacob; and He will teach us of His ways, and 
we will walk in His paths. For out of Zion shall 
go forth the law, and the word of Jehovah from 
Jerusalem: and He will judge between many peo- 
ples, and will decide concerning strong nations afar 
off: and they shall beat their swords into plow- 
shares, and their spears into pruning-hooks : nation 
shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall 
they learn war any more. But they shall sit every 
man under his vine and under his jig-tree; and none 
shall make them afraid: for the mouth of Jehovah 
of hosts hath spoken it" (Micah IV:2~4). 

Oh ! how solemn and how pressing the obligation, 
that is thus brought home to the Christian Church 
of to-day, to hasten with the message of life and 
salvation to the ends of the earth, and especially 
too to tell the story of redeeming love to the lost 
sheep of the house of Israel! 

And oh, my Christless hearer! can you not trust 



242 The Humanity of the Christ 

yourself to the fatherly care and keeping of this Be- 
ing of infinite mercy and faithfulness? And will 
you not, this day and hour, consecrate yourself to 
the service of His only begotten and well beloved 
Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, the Friend of sinners, 
the only Savior of the lost? 



A TWOFOLD CAUSE OF ERROR 

IGNORANCE OF THE SCRIPTURES AND OF THE 
POWER OF GOD 

Matt. XXII 129-32. "But Jesus answered and said unto 
them, Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the 
Power of God. For in the resurrection they neither 
marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as angels in 
heaven. But as touching the resurrection of the dead, 
have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by 
God, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of 
Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the 
dead, but of the living." 

^\UR Lord gives us here, for our prayerful medi- 
tation, a twofold cause of error, viz., ignorance 
of the Scriptures and of the power of God. 

A primal cause of men's delusions, He assures us, 
is their ignorance of the Scriptures. 

A notable instance of this sort of ignorance is 
furnished in the case of these Sadducees, who, while 
professing to accept their Hebrew Scriptures, at the 
same time claimed "that there is no resurrection, 
neither angel, nor spirit" (Acts XXIII :8). A 
strange paradox! Many a plain and explicit state- 
243 



244 The Humanity of the Christ 

ment, of course, had to be explained away. But then 
there is nothing singular about that, for has not the 
world been trying, during all these succeeding cen- 
turies, to explain away the New Testament as well 
as the Old? 

Only last year there appeared, in a leading maga- 
zine for ministers of the Gospel, a most pitiful il- 
lustration of the extent to which men will go in 
perverting the Scriptures of truth. 

God called Abram out of Ur of the Chaldees, 
for the very purpose of raising up a holy nation, 
and gave him the most solemn assurance, that in 
him and in his seed all the nations of the earth should 
be blessed. Through the prophet Isaiah He cries 
out, "Look unto Me, and be ye saved, all the ends 
of the earth; for I am God, and there is none else" 
(Ch. XLV:22). And in Rom. XI:i5 it is express- 
ly declared, that the spiritual redemption of Israel 
will be as "life from the dead" to the rest of the 
world. 

And yet this learned doctor of divinity, who is a 
professor in a noted theological school in the State 
of Massachusetts, in addressing the graduates of a 
similar institution, had the moral hardihood to say, 
that the Jewish doctrine of the Messianic kingdom 
virtually meant the extermination of all other na- 
tions. One can scarcely conceive of a more brazen- 



A Twofold Cause of Error 245 

faced attempt to turn the truth of God into a lie! 

The case these Sadducees brought forward may 
have been a real, but more likely, was a purely imag- 
inary one. That, however, is a matter of no impor- 
tance. We are not concerned with their pretended 
difficulty, but rather with their amazing intellectual, 
moral, and spiritual stupidity. 

The heaven of their imaginings was that of a de- 
graded, brutalized paganism; not the pure and holy 
Paradise of God. "To the law and to the testi- 
mony! if they speak not according to this word, 
surely there is no morning for them" (Is. VIII :2o). 

"In the resurrection they neither marry, nor are 
given in marriage, but are as angels in heaven." 
Even the holiest of earthly relations is but for this 
present life. The earthly family is but the blessed 
antetype of the family of God, which is being gath- 
ered out of all nations under heaven; whose mem- 
bers are all to be raised, or translated, to immortal 
bliss and glory, in the day of the appearing of the 
Lord Jesus Christ; and of whom He shall say to 
the attendant and admiring hosts of heaven, "Be- 
hold, I and the children whom God hath given 
Me" (Heb. II:i3). 

O yes, blessed be God! there have already been 
myriads of family reunions in heaven, and there 
will be myriads more; but the most beatific and 



246 The Humanity of the Christ 

joyful reunion will be that, when the saints of all 
ages, out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, 
and nation, shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, 
and Jacob, at the marriage supper of the Lamb! 
And whether at midnight, at early dawn, or in the 
full light of day, may we all be ready, dear friends, 
when the cry shall be heard, "Behold, the Bride- 
groom! Come ye forth to meet Him!" (Matt. 
XXV :6). 

"But as touching the resurrection of the dead, 
have ye not read that which was spoken unto you 
by God, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and 
the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is 
not the God of the dead, but of the living." The 
living God is far more than simply the God of 
inert, lifeless matter; of bodies that have moldered 
back to dust. He is, in a far higher, more exalted 
sense, the God of the undying soul. "And Jehovah 
God formed man of the dust of the ground, and 
breathed into his nostrils the breath of life ; and man 
became a living soul" (Gen. 11:7). And thus man 
became an emanation of Deity, created "in" the 
"image," and "after" the "likeness" of God (Gen- 
1 :26). And so we are told that, at his death, "The 
dust returneth to the earth as it was, and the spirit 
returneth unto God Who gave it" (Eccle. XII :j). 
When God spoke to Moses out of the burning bush 



A Twofold Cause of Error 247 

Abraham, Isaac and Jacob had already been dead 
and buried for centuries, and yet He said to him, 
not that He had at one time been their God: but 
this is what He said, "I am the God of Abraham, 
and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." 

What was the trouble with those Sadducees? 
First of all, just what ails multitudes in our own 
day. While doubtless quite familiar with the writ- 
ten Word of God, they were yet utterly, amazingly 
ignorant as to its true import. And, alas! many a 
modern theologian scarce dreams of what may be 
found on almost any page of the Old Testament 
Scriptures; nay, he does not even comprehend the 
New Testament. And why? Because "the natural 
man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: 
for they are foolishness unto him ; and he cannot 
know them, because they are spiritually judged" 
(I. Cor. II:i4). And unless fallen man is taught 
and guided by the Spirit of truth, he is very apt 
to misread the Book of God; yea, he is certain to 
pervert it to his own eternal undoing ! 

A once noted writer, in a magazine article, pub- 
lished in 1895, and entitled, "Christianity's Mill- 
stone," affirmed that the Old Testament is that 
millstone. The New Testament, it seems, must be 
separated from the Old; the two should not be 



248 The Humanity of the Christ 

bound up in the same volume. 1 "The time," he 
says, "has surely come when, as a supernatural reve- 
lation, the Old Testament should frankly, though 
reverently, be laid aside, and nevermore allowed to 
cloud the vision of free enquiry, or to cast the 
shadow of primal religion on our modern life." 
Oh, yes! these folks are really willing to allow the 
Bible a place in our institutions of learning as a 
book for literary study. Says another writer, "Who 
shall say that it is not to be included in the curric- 
ulum of polite learning, perhaps of equal moment 
with Shakespeare?" And the poor souls imagine, 
in so saying, that they do the Bible high honor! 
Of course, they will have nothing to do with it as 
a revelation from heaven, concerning the character 
of God, or of His plan of redeeming love for our 
guilty race. 

"In the beginning God created the heavens and 
the earth." That opening sentence of the book of 
Genesis tells us more about the origin of the mate- 
rial universe than all the ancient heathen cosmogo- 
nies and all the vain imaginings of these modern 
speculators put together! And have they devised 
something more perfect, as a code of morals, than 
the ten immortal words which Jehovah uttered from 

1 The King's Business, Los Angeles, Cal., May, 191 6, 
page 417. 



A Twofold Cause of Error 249 

the top of Mount Sinai ? Think too of the untold 
myriads of the Lord's people in every age, who, on 
their dying beds, have found sweet consolation in 
many a precious psalm ! 

But whence did they imbibe most of these pervert- 
ed notions as to the infallible Book of God? From 
the very country whose leaders have appalled the 
whole world during these last few years, by the 
way in which they have openly and defiantly tram- 
pled on every dictate of humanity? Spurgeon, Lon- 
don's famous preacher, said once upon a time, "A 
German professor smokes his dirty pipe till he 
doesn't know which is Moses and which is Bis- 
marck." Says Canon Dyson Hague, "In one word, 
the formative forces of the Higher Critical move- 
ment were rationalistic forces, and the men who 
were its chief authors and expositors, who 'on ac- 
count of purely philological criticism have acquired 
an appalling authority,' were men who had dis- 
carded belief in God and Jesus Christ Whom He 
had sent." 2 Some months ago this amazing state- 
ment, by a professor in the University of Munich, 
appeared in one of our American magazines, 
"Thirty years ago Germany eliminated Christianity 
from its theology, and substituted a religion suit- 
able to its Kultur." Oh, no, they didn't tell the Ger- 

2 The Fundamentals, Vol. I, page 98. 



250 The Humanity of the Christ 

man people all that, those consummate hypocrites; 
they simply camouflaged. First they disposed of the 
five books of Moses, next they got rid of Isaiah, 
Ezekiel and Daniel, then of the apostolic writers, 
and then they went to work to try to prove that 
the four Gospels were a mere tissue of idle fabrica- 
tions. And at last they have not hesitated to be- 
smirch the character of the Man of Nazareth! 
Well, "By their fruits ye shall know them" (Matt. 
VII:i6). 

And the hideous exhibitions which the world has 
had of late, of the depths of infamy and fiendish 
brutality to which the modern Hun can sink, ought 
to convince any sane man or woman, of the folly 
and danger of turning one's back upon the only 
Book which, from beginning to end, proves itself 
to be a revelation from the living God; the only 
Book that has ever shown man the way from this 
sin-cursed earth to a heaven of unsullied purity and 
everlasting bliss! 

To prove that the declaration at the burning 
bush, quoted by our Lord, was by no means either 
solitary or singular, let us look at certain other most 
significant statements. "But thou shalt go to thy 
fathers in peace; thou shalt be buried in a good old 
age." "Abraham . . . died . . . and was gathered 
to his people" (Gen. XV:i5; XXV :8). And yet 



A Twofold Cause of Error 251 

his father Terah was buried in Haran, situated on 
one of the northern affluents of the Euphrates, and 
his brother Haran, as well as their forefathers, in 
Ur of the Chaldees, a country bordering on the same 
mighty river, near its southern terminus, while the 
patriarch himself was buried in the land of Canaan. 
Isaac, like his father, was buried in the cave of 
Machpelah, and yet we are told, when he died, not 
simply that he was gathered to his father and 
mother; but this, "Isaac died, and was gathered 
unto his people" (Gen. XXXV 129). The very 
same fact is affirmed concerning the patriarch Jacob, 
not weeks after his death, when his sons had 
brought his embalmed body from Egypt, and had 
entombed it in the cave of Machpelah, but imme- 
diately upon his decease. "And when Jacob made 
an end of charging his sons, he gathered up his feet 
into the bed, and yielded up the ghost, and was 
gathered unto his people" (Gen. XLIX:33). God 
assured Moses, "Thou shalt sleep with thy fathers," 
and yet He buried his body "in the valley in the 
land of Moab, . . . but," adds the historian, "no 
man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day" (Deut. 
XXXI : 1 6 ; XXXIV :6 ) . When the prophet Nathan 
was sent to tell king David that not he, but his son, 
should build a house for Jehovah, he was, as we read 
in II. Sam. VII: 12, addressed in these words, 



252 The Humanity of the Christ 

"When thy days are fulfilled, and thou shalt sleep 
with thy fathers." In I. Chron. XVII :n it reads, 
"And it shall come to pass, when thy days are ful- 
filled that thou must go to be with thy fathers, that 
I will set up thy seed after thee, who shall be of thy 
sons; and I will establish his kingdom." And yet 
David was buried at Jerusalem, while the sepulchre 
of his fathers was at Bethlehem. This being gath- 
ered to their people, or to their fathers, cannot there- 
fore, in any of these cases, refer to the places where 
their bodies were laid to rest : but, in every case, can 
only refer to a gathering together of their undying 
souls. 

This is how the Old Testament speaks of the 
continued conscious existence of the spirit of man. 
Does it also foretell the resurrection of the body? 

Already before the flood we read of Enoch, "the 
seventh from Adam" (Jude 14), that he "walked 
with God . . . three hundred years: . . . and he 
was not; for God took him" (Gen. V:22, 24). And 
the famous prophet, Elijah the Tishbite, in the broad 
light of day, and in the sight of his servant and 
successor, Elisha, "went up," with "a chariot of 
fire, and horses of fire," "by a whirlwind into 
heaven" (II. Kings II:n). And did not the angel 
tell the prophet Daniel of the "many," the vast 
multitudes, "that sleep in the dust of the earth," 



A Twofold Cause of Error 253 

that "shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some 
to shame and everlasting contempt"? (Dan. XII: 

2). 

What clear, reiterated proofs of the continuous, 
separate, and intelligent existence of man, after the 
hour and article of death! What positive declara- 
tion, what wonderful, what visible demonstration of 
the coming rejuvenescence and glorification of the 
bodies of all the true people of God, and of the 
ultimate resurrection of all the race! 

A second cause of error is here indicated, viz., 
Ignorance of the power of God. "Ye do err, not 
knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God." 

He Who could, in the twinkling of an eye, catch 
Enoch and Elijah up into heaven, has He not also 
the power to raise again the sleeping dust of all His 
saints of every age? And having then already, 
when our Lord uttered these words, by the space of 
four thousand years, sent forth those swift-winged 
messengers of light, the angels of His power, "to 
do service for the sake of them that shall inherit 
salvation" (Heb. 1 114), is He not just as able to 
do on a grand and majestic scale, in the day of the 
resurrection of the just, for the believers then alive 
upon the earth, what He did do in the individual 
cases of Enoch and Elijah, viz., to instantaneously 
transform and etherealize these gross bodies of ours, 



254 The Humanity of the Christ 

to remove from man every animal passion and 
desire, and to make him in all respects the equal of 
the holy inhabitants of heaven? Why nature itself, 
especially in the days of early spring, continually 
speaks to us of the resurrecting power of the great 
Creator. 

While it was in the life and death of the Lord 
Jesus Christ, the God-Man, that the Divine love 
was fully manifested, nevertheless the love of God 
to fallen man was taught throughout the entire He- 
brew Scriptures. And we have now seen, while, 
as says an apostle, our adorable Redeemer "abol- 
ished death, and brought life and immortality to 
light through the Gospel" (II. Tim. I:io) in all 
their glorious fulness, that yet the olden Scriptures 
were by no means silent in regard to these grand 
doctrines, that lie at the very foundation of all 
true religion. 

It is indeed preposterous to suppose that the God 
of love should have left His intelligent earthly crea- 
tures, and even such as His Holy Spirit had led to 
repentance, had sanctified, and had "made . . . 
meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints 
in light" (Col. I:i2), "who through faith subdued 
kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained prom- 
ises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the power 
of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, from weak- 



A Twofold Cause of Error 255 

ness were made strong, . . . received their dead by 
a resurrection," while "others were tortured," or, 
as the margin has it, "beaten to death," "not accept- 
ing their deliverance ; that they might obtain a bet- 
ter resurrection" (Heb. XI 133-35 ): it is utterly 
preposterous to suppose that He would have left the 
world, and even His praying, struggling, persecuted 
saints, for full four thousand years in utter, abso- 
lute ignorance as to their eternal state, or whether 
indeed there was a hereafter at all ! Away with the 
detestable idea! Why, every orthodox Jew in our 
Lord's day knew better than that, and that alto- 
gether apart from His own blessed teachings. When 
He said to Martha of Bethany, "Thy brother shall 
rise again," she at once returned the confident an- 
swer, "I know that he shall rise again in the resur- 
rection at the last day" (John XI 123, 24). The 
apostle Paul assured king Agrippa, that all the 
twelve tribes of Israel were living in hope of a glori- 
ous resurrection, in accordance with "the promise 
made of God unto" their "fathers" (Acts XXVI: 
6). And what of those ancient Hebrew worthies, 
already referred to, who would not accept "their 
deliverance" from a martyr's death, assured that 
by surrendering life itself, they would become heirs 
to "a better resurrection"? 

Ah ! let us see to it, dear hearers, that we study, 



256 The Humanity of the Christ 

diligently and prayerfully, the whole revealed will 
of God. As we cannot gain a full understanding 
of the Old Testament, without a thorough acquaint- 
ance with the New, neither can we understand the 
New Testament Scriptures, if we altogether neglect 
the Old. And we do ourselves great wrong, if we 
fail to familiarize ourselves with these more ancient 
sacred oracles, "For," as we read in Rom. XV 14, 
"whatsoever things were written aforetime were 
written for our learning, that through patience and 
through comfort of the Scriptures we might have 
hope." 

How our blessed Redeemer loved to recall these 
Old Testament Scriptures, and to dwell upon them. 
How ardently His followers ought likewise to love 
them, were it only for His sake. And how His 
unerring example should spur us on, and convince 
us of their inestimable value to each one of us! 

"Never man so spake," said the officers who had 
been sent "to take Him," and so overawed were 
they, that they did not venture to lay "hands on 
Him" (John VII 146, 32, 44). Astounded as were 
His hearers at His direct utterances, they were no 
less so at the way in which He quoted Moses and 
the prophets. 

But how came it to pass that Christ quoted Scrip- 
ture so aptly? The answer is plain enough. The 



A Twofold Cause of Error 257 

Lord Jesus, as the late Joseph Parker, of London, 
has well said, "Himself wrote them. The Scrip- 
tures were quoted from Him, He did not quote 
from the Scriptures. He only quotes Himself, and 
quotes Himself with the emphasis which the writer 
of any deep literature alone can give to his own 
words." 3 

But what Scriptural warrant had this writer for 
these statements? Is the Old Testament really 
Christ's own word to us? In the prologue to the 
Gospel according to John it is declared, at verse 18, 
"No man hath seen God at any time; the only be- 
gotten Son, Who is in the bosom of the Father, He 
hath declared Him." Who then was "the Voice of 
Jehovah God" (Gen. 111:8) ? Who "the Judge of 
all the earth," with Whom Abraham plead on be- 
half of the cities of the plain (Gen. XVIII 125)? 
Who the Jehovah Who "stood above" the ladder of 
Jacob's vision (Ch. XXVIII 113)? Who the "I 
AM THAT I AM" of "the bush" that "burned 
with fire, and" that "was not consumed" (Ex. Ill: 
14, 2) ? For answer let us attend to the opening 
words of the Gospel just quoted, "In the beginning 
was the Word, and the Word was with God, and 
the Word was God. The same was in the begin- 
ning with God. All things were made through 
* The Inner Life of Christ, Vol. Ill, page 143. 



258 The Humanity of the Christ 

Him ; and without Him was not anything made that 
hath been made" (John 1: 1-3). 

Our Lord said to the unbelieving Jews, "Verily, 
verily, I saw unto you, Before Abraham was born, 
I am" (John VIII 158). And elsewhere He de- 
clared, "All things have been delivered unto Me of 
My Father: and no one knoweth the Son, save the 
Father; neither doth any know the Father, save 
the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son willeth to 
reveal Him" (Matt. XI 127). Of the Old Testa- 
ment Scriptures He said, "These are they which 
bear witness of Me" (John V:39). And the aged 
revelator was told that "The testimony of Jesus is 
the spirit of prophecy" (Rev. XIX: 10). 

Verily our blessed Lord, by His Spirit, does Him- 
self speak to us in all Scripture. And let us never 
forget that it is only in so far as we are guided 
by this same Spirit of truth, that we shall be able 
to take in the blessed truths of this Book of books. 

Having quoted His own declaration at the burn- 
ing bush, our Lord, in His answer to the Saddu- 
cees, added these pregnant words of vast and sol- 
emn import, "God is not the God of the dead, but 
of the living." The immortal spirits of the patri- 
archs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in that unseen 
world, whither the angels had convoyed them at 
death, were still enjoying the favor of God in the 



A Twofold Cause of Error 259 

days of Moses, nor less when our Lord first uttered 
these words. And to this very hour He is still their 
God. 

My dear hearer, is He your God? Are you living 
a life of faith upon the Son of God? or are you 
still dead in "trespasses and sins" (Eph. II :i ) ? 
Says the Savior, John V 124-25, "Verily, verily, I 
say unto you, He that heareth My word, and be- 
lieveth Him that sent Me, hath eternal life, and 
cometh not into judgment, but hath passed out of 
death into life. Verily, verily, I say unto you, 
The hour cometh, and now is, when the dead shall 
hear the voice of the Son of God; and they that 
hear shall live." The reference is here evidently 
to the spiritual awakening, i. e., the conversion and 
regeneration of sinners. This is made still clearer 
by what almost immediately follows, in verses 28 
and 29, where our Lord, in speaking of the ultimate 
resurrection of the body, says, "Marvel not at this: 
for the hour cometh, in which all that are in the 
tombs shall hear His voice, and shall come forth; 
they that have done good, unto the resurrection of 
life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrec- 
tion of judgment." 

"God is not the God of the dead, but of the, 
living." Beloved hearer, has your life hitherto been 
evil in the sight of that Holy One, Who cannot look 



260 The Humanity of the Christ 

upon sin but with abhorrence? In other words, 
Are you dead to God and to holiness? Man be- 
came spiritually dead when first he fell away from 
his allegiance to God. And Holy Writ admonishes 
us that by and by there is to be a "second death" 
(Rev. XX 114), i. e., the finally lost will be eter- 
nally separated from the favor of God, and from 
the fellowship of all the holy on earth and in heaven. 
Oh! we beseech you, to-day, this very hour, listen 
to the voice of the Son of God! "They that hear 
shall live." "Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise 
from" among "the dead, and Christ shall shine upon 
thee!" (Eph. V:i4). Turn even now from your 
evil ways, and accept of the mercy so freely offered 
to you in Christ, lest perchance you too be undone 
for ever! 



THE FALL OF MAN 

PARADISE BESTOWED, LOST, AND REGAINED 

Rom. V:i2, 20-21. "Therefore, as through one man 
sin entered into the world, and death through sin; and so 
death passed unto all men, for that all sinned. . . .And 
the law came in besides, that the trespass might abound; 
but where sin abounded, grace did abound more ex- 
ceedingly: that, as sin reigned in death, even so might 
grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life 
through Jesus Christ our Lord'* 

ENGLAND'S blind bard has sung in majestic 
strain : 

"Of man's first disobedience and the fruit 
Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste 
Brought death into the world and all our woe, 
With loss of Eden, till one greater Man 
Restore us, and regain the blissful seat:" 

and even so does Holy Writ speak to us of a three- 
fold Paradise, viz., 

A Paradise Bestowed, 

A Paradise Lost, and 

A Paradise Regained. 

261 



262 The Humanity of the Christ 

The historians and poets of ancient pagan na- 
tions delighted to dwell upon the felicity of man- 
kind during that golden age in which, as they fondly 
dreamed, all was peace and harmony among men. 
The sure Word of God, however, informs us that 
that happy time passed away very quickly, as it 
was only a little while after his creation, when man 
forsook his allegiance to Jehovah, and when he was 
exiled from the abodes of bliss. 

The answer to the 20th question of the Larger 
Westminister Catechism is as follows: "The provi- 
dence of God toward man, in the estate in which he 
was created, was, the placing him in Paradise, ap- 
pointing him to dress it, giving him liberty to eat 
of the fruit of the earth, putting the creatures un- 
der his dominion, and ordaining marriage for his 
help; affording him communion with Himself, in- 
stituting the Sabbath, entering into a covenant of 
life with him, upon condition of personal, perfect, 
and perpetual obedience, of which the tree of life 
was a pledge; and forbidding to eat of the tree 
of the knowledge of good and evil, upon pain of 
death." 

This comprehensive statement of the Westminster 
divines is far from overdrawn, as we shall find in 
seeking, first of all, to establish and ponder this fact, 
viz., God bestowed a Paradise upon man. 



The Fall of Man 263 

And this is, dear hearers, a matter of immense 
importance. It has to do with the very founda- 
tions of our holy religion. Our enemies understand 
this very well, and that is why modern unbelief, 
though in the very teeth, not only of the positive 
declarations of Holy Scripture, but also of the uni- 
form testimony of all antiquity, is constantly seeking 
to belie this fundamental fact. Alas! that so many 
have been led astray by these pitiful delusions, so 
dishonoring to God, and which have done such in- 
calculable harm to the souls of men. 

What now has the scientific world to say to-day, 
as to all these wretched attempts to unsettle our 
faith in the Bible as a direct revelation from God? 
"Evolution is bankrupt." 1 We are invited to The 
Death-Bed of Darwinism. 2 "Natural Selection," 
"The Transmission of Species," "The Survival of 
the Fittest." All these have been "swept away," 
are "absolutely gone," and may be safely consigned 
to the limbo of things forgotten. Biologists are 

1 Q. E. D., or New Light on the Doctrine of Creation, 
by George McCready Price, Professor of Chemistry and 
Physics, Lodi Academy, California, 1917, passim. See 
also A Critique of the Theory of Evolution. Lectures 
delivered in 191 6 at Princeton University by Prof. Thomas 
Hunt Morgan of Columbia University. 

2 Title of a book published in Germany a few years 
ago. 



264 The Humanity of the Christ 

compelled to confess that they are entirely ignorant 
as to the origin of either plant or animal life. And 
even geology, according to some of its leading ex- 
ponents, must for ever stop talking about those sup- 
posedly vast ages during which, as we were once 
so dogmatically assured, the various strata of the 
rocks were in process of formation ; for we are now 
told that that was all moonshine, because there are 
no fossils older than man, all fossiliferous rocks being 
of about the same age! And, to think of it, there 
may even have been a universal deluge, at which 
time, for aught that science can now show to the 
contrary, those mighty upheavals may have taken 
place, which account for the way in which the rocks 
are found topsy-turvy all over our globe. 

The fittest "surviving." Not at all. "Not the 
evolution of matter, but the degeneration of matter, 
is the plain and unescapable lesson to be drawn from 
these facts." 3 And again, "It is a universal law 
of living things that all forms left to themselves 
tend to degenerate." 4 Oh, yes ! come to think of 
it, that's what the good old Book tells us in regard 
to our race, that we are fallen beings, whose moral 
and spiritual tendency is for ever downward, save 
as the renewing and sanctifying grace of God inter- 

8 Q. E. D:, p. 24. 
4 Ibid., p. 94. 



The Fall of Man 265 

venes, which alone can fit us both for this world 
and the next. 

Certainly believers in a living, omnipresent, and 
omniscient God have no cause for alarm. On the 
contrary, we do have abundant reason to protest 
against having this wretched stuff, now so utterly 
exploded, still largely doled out by the public press, 
and, what is far worse, in the class-room, by those 
who are seemingly too indolent, or who lack suffi- 
cient intellectual independence, to inquire for them- 
selves as to what are the actual, present-day teach- 
ings of the leaders in scientific inquiry. "The science 
of geology as commonly taught," we are told, "is 
truly in a most astonishing condition, and doubtless 
presents the most peculiar mixture of fact and non- 
sense to be found in the whole range of our mod- 
ern knowledge. . . . That most educated people 
still believe its main theses of a definite age for each 
particular kind of fossil is a sad but instructive ex- 
ample of the effects of mental inertia." 5 

And now science is actually bringing us back to 
the opening chapter of the book of Genesis, for it 
also reaffirms the teachings of Holy Writ, in telling 
us that "every seed," whether of herb, or beast, or 
bird, or of the fishes of the sea, can only bring forth 
"after its kind." And that brings us to the con- 

6 Ibid., p. 1 18. 



266 The Humanity of the Christ 

sideration of a matter vitally connected with the 
subject now before us. 

The late Professor Alexander Winchell, in 1880, 
published his once famous work, entitled, "Pre- 
Adamites; or a demonstration of the existence of 
Men before Adam: together with a study of their 
Condition, Antiquity, Racial Affinities, and Pro- 
gressive Dispersion over the earth." And here is a 
specimen of how the learned man demonstrated; or 
rather, it shows what wild, often self-contradictory, 
guesses many of these physical scientists indulge in, 
and they really seem to expect that the common 
man, overawed by their superior wisdom, will aban- 
don his common horse-sense, and swallow the 
wretched stuff! We quote from pages 349 and 350 
of this large and pretentious volume. "Dr. John 
Davy, after describing a fine albino girl of Ceylon, 
adds, 'It is easy to conceive that an accidental va- 
riety of the kind might propagate, and that the 
White race of mankind is sprung from such an 
accidental variety. The (East) Indians are of this 
opinion; and there is a tradition or story among 
them, in which this origin is assigned to us.' " After 
giving some one else's testimony as to the noble 
character of the aborigines of India, he adds, "On 
the whole, I think the Dravidian presents rather 
the most probable point of connection between the 



The Fall of Man 267 

Adamites and the other races." But there never 
were any other races of men, before or after Adam ; 
no proof of that sort has ever yet been produced ! 

How many a physical scientist, in the excess of 
his moral and mental idiocy, has actually sought to 
trace his own genealogy and family relationship, 
and that of the race, up, or rather down to, the 
chattering, grinning baboon, or some other species 
of pure bestiality ! Quite recently they are swinging 
clear around, and tell us that the monkey has sprung 
from some degenerate specimen of the genus homo! 
The one theory is just about as worthless as the 
other. As for man having descended from some 
lower animal, the missing link, however diligently 
sought, has never been found. 6 "The late Robert 
Etheridge of the British Museum, head of the geo- 
logical department, and one of the ablest of British 
paleontologists, has said, 'In all that great museum 
there is not a particle of evidence of transmutation 
of species. Nine-tenths of the talk of evolutionists 
is not founded on observation, and is usually wholly 
unsupported by facts.' " Says another, "Neither on 
the earth, nor under the earth, is any trace of an 
ape ancestry discoverable." 7 "Professor Virchow, 

8 See The Fundamentals, Vol. VIII, p. 83. 
7 Scientific Sophisms, by Samuel Wainwright, D.D., p. 
239. 



268 The Humanity of the Christ 

of Berlin, admittedly the ablest anthropologist of 
modern times . . . declared: 'In vain have the 
links, which should bind man to the monkey, been 
sought ; not a single one is there to show.' " 8 And 
he is said to have declared with vehemence, "on an- 
other occasion, regarding evolution, 'It's all non- 
sense. You are as far as ever you were from estab- 
lishing any connection between man and the ape.' " 9 

There is one thing which does demand our most 
serious attention. Have we not all heard time and 
again that primeval man was little or nothing more 
than a rude, ignorant savage? We have no hesita- 
tion at all to denounce that assumption as wholly 
gratuitous, a libel against Heaven, and contrary to 
all the teachings of history, both sacred and profane. 
The folly of it will, as we trust, appear fully as 
we proceed. 

In Col. III:io it is declared that "the new man 
... is being renewed unto knowledge, after the 
image of Him that created him"; and in Eph. IV: 
23-24 the apostle writes, "And that ye be renewed 
in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new man, 
that after God hath been created in righteousness 
and holiness of truth." These Scriptures clearly 
imply that God did not send forth the last and 

s The Fundamentals, Vol. VIII, p. 28. 
9 Ibid., p. 83. 



The Fall of Man 269 

noblest of His creatures in a state of utter ignorance 
and abject helplessness: but, contrariwise, that He 
endowed the first pair with "knowledge, righteous- 
ness, and holiness," and that this is precisely what is 
meant by the declaration, in the opening chapter of 
Genesis, that God created man in His "image," and 
"after" His "likeness" (v. 26). As says the wise 
Solomon, "God made man upright" (Eccle. VII: 
29) ; not only erect in form, but likewise pure, 
stainless in intellect, heart, and will. Not only was 
he free from all moral taint; but he was likewise 
far removed from the condition of an untutored 
savage. 

"A man is known by the company he keeps," says 
the old adage, and it is a universally acknowledged 
fact, that no educational force is equal to familiar 
and daily communion with the great and good, the 
wise and the noble of earth, either by personal inter- 
course, or by means of the printed page. 

What now are the facts in the case of our first 
parents? Adam is no sooner created but he comes 
into immediate personal contact and fellowship with 
his Maker; and, what is really an immense factor 
in the problem before us, he proves himself both 
morally and intellectually fit to hold converse and 
communion with his Father and his God, as being 
indeed a being of kindred spirit, however infinite 



270 The Humanity of the Christ 

the distance that separates the creature from the 
Creator. 

As has been so ably argued by that eloquent 
writer of a century and a half ago, the Rev. Dr. Pat- 
rick Delany, 10 of Dublin, Ireland. God endowed 
Adam and Eve with a remarkable amount of knowl- 
edge, and that from the very day and hour of their 
creation; knowledge too which could have come to, 
or been gained by, them only through direct revela- 
tion from, or impartation by, Deity. 

It was God Who bestowed upon Adam and Eve 
the power of articulate, intelligible speech, which of 
itself differentiates man from all the other creatures 
of earth. And it was God Who, moreover, at once 
gave them a vocabulary, a list or stock of words, 
amply sufficient to enable them to hold intelligent 
converse with each other and with the Author of 
their being. And all this, as the whole history of 
the race has abundantly proved, they never could 
have secured in any other way. Imagine, if you 
choose, "a gradual conversion of brute howlings into 
articulate speech," but please bear in mind that 
even Professor Huxley felt compelled to make this 
remarkable admission: "Believing as I do, with 
Cuvier," he says, "that the possession of articulate 
speech is the grand distinctive character of man, 

10 Revelation Examined with Candour. Vols. I and III. 



The Fall of Man 271 

. . . the primary cause of the IMMEASURABLE 
and practically infinite divergence of the Human 
from the Simian stirps." 

However diverse the dialects and languages of 
mankind have been, since God confounded their 
speech at Babel, and although living languages are 
constantly undergoing various changes, yet to this 
very day man has never discovered the first syllable 
of human speech. As says Dr. Samuel Johnson, 
speaking of the origin of language, "It must have 
come by inspiration. A thousand — nay, a million 
of children could not invent a language. While the 
organs are pliable, there is not understanding enough 
to form a language ; by the time that there is under- 
standing enough, the organs are become stiff. No 
foreigner who comes to England when advanced in 
life ever pronounces English tolerably well ; at least 
such instances are very rare. When I maintain that 
language must have come by inspiration, I do not 
mean that inspiration is required for rhetoric, and 
all the beauties of language; for when once man 
has language, we can conceive that he may grad- 
ually form modifications of it. I mean only that 
inspiration seems to me to be necessary to give man 
the faculty of speech; to inform him that he may 
have speech; which I think he could no more find 



272 The Humanity of the Christ 

out without inspiration than cows or hogs would 
think of such a faculty." 

To this conclusive reasoning of the famous lexi- 
cographer it may be added, that the extent and 
marvelous accuracy of this revelation of language 
appears most clearly from the fact that Adam, on 
the very day of his creation, "gave" appropriate 
"names to all cattle, and to the birds of the heavens, 
and to every beast of the field" (Gen. II:2o). 

And modern philology, in showing more and more 
conclusively, that the multiform tongues and dia- 
lects of the tribes and kindreds of earth, do all point 
back to one common origin, is proclaiming anew, 
and with an ever-increasing emphasis, the inspired 
declaration, that God "made of one every nation of 
men, to dwell on all the face of the earth" (Acts 
XVII :26). 

Time will not allow us to more than mention 
the other revelations, which were made to man on 
the day in which he was created. 

God assured man, and inspired him with the un- 
doubted conviction, that he, the last product of 
Jehovah's handiwork, was His vice-gerent on earth, 
the absolute lord over all the lower animal creation. 
And in order that man's sway over these multiform 
creatures might be an intelligent one, he was at the 
same time given a wonderful knowledge in regard 



The Fall of Man 273 

to their widely varying capabilities and powers. A 
revelation but for which, in the presence of beast, 
and bird, and creeping thing, weak, defenceless man 
would at once have been plunged into helpless mis- 
ery and hopeless despair. 

A beneficent Creator both provided most abun- 
dantly for man's bodily sustenance, and imparted 
to him all needed information as to how and when 
he should make use of these herbs and fruits. 

God likewise gave the first pair immediate, clear 
knowledge in regard to the institution of marriage, 
and as to all that is holy and blessed in the Heaven- 
ordained relations of the sexes to one another. 

Adam and Eve were also at once made acquainted 
with the law of the Sabbath, or weekly day of rest. 
And that the week, with its six days of toil, and a 
seventh for worship, dates, not from the Divine ut- 
terance of those ten immortal words, spoken with 
audible voice from the top of Mt. Sinai, but is 
coeval with the birth of the race, is incidentally 
proved by the tenor of the whole book of Genesis, 
and of that marvelous work of patriarchal times, the 
book of Job. 

What then, in brief, was the condition of the 
first pair? and what of that paradisaic state into 
which they were ushered by the all-wise and benefi- 
cent Creator? They came forth from the plastic 



274 The Humanity of the Christ 

hand of Deity, with every faculty of body and 
mind perfect after its kind, perfectly fitted to do 
their bidding, and perfectly adapted to yield them 
unalloyed happiness in their mutual intercourse, in 
the worship and service of their heavenly Father, 
and in the devout and admiring contemplation of 
His wondrous works. And in entire harmony with 
all this, and in order that they might intelligently 
serve God, and be truly helpful to each other, and 
that they and their immediate posterity might, so 
to speak, have a fair start in life, they were, at the 
very beginning of their career, endowed with all 
needful knowledge, whence they might press on 
unto perfection. 

And then Jehovah placed the happy pair in a 
garden of delights, a Paradise, fitted up expressly 
to be their abode, where every prospect pleased and 
delighted the eye, and where their every want was 
provided for with a most royal bounty! Says the 
sacred historian, "And Jehovah God planted a gar- 
den eastward, in Eden; and there He put the man 
whom He had formed, ... to dress it, and to keep 
it" (Gen. 11:8, 15). "And out of the ground made 
Jehovah God to grow every tree that is pleasant to 
the sight, and good for food" (v. 9). 

Such the Paradise, and such the paradisaic state 
of peace and joy, full too of the brightest pros- 



The Fall of Man 275 

pects in an altogether unclouded future, which "the 
Father of lights" (James 1 117) had bestowed upon 
the primogenitors of the human race. 

We pass on to notice the deplorable fact that 
this Paradise was lost. 

The text tells us how this grievous loss came 
about. "Through one man sin entered into the 
world, and death through sin." God had created 
man in His "image," and "after" His "likeness," 
which means, as we have already learned from the 
writings of the apostle Paul, and from the remark- 
able revelations which Jehovah made to them, that 
intellectually, morally, and spiritually our first pa- 
rents were, in their measure, a true reflection and 
image of the great Creator. 

If the question is asked, How it was possible that 
evil should find an entrance into minds and hearts 
so altogether pure and stainless, we can only answer 
in the language of one of the fathers of the Primitive 
Church, "The demand to fully explain the origin of 
evil in the heart not hitherto depraved, is as unrea- 
sonable as would be the demand to see the darkness 
and to hear silence." Mere speculations as to the 
origin of evil, it may be added, are utterly vain and 
unprofitable. The Rev. Dr. Lyman Beecher once 
gave this homely bit of advice to his son Edward, 
which we may all of us take to heart, "If the Al- 



276 The Humanity of the Christ 

mighty has got into trouble about the origin of sin, 
don't you try to help Him out." The business of 
the Christian pulpit is of far too solemn import, that 
the ambassador of the court of heaven should stoop 
to pander to men of dishonest minds, who have itch- 
ing ears, but no sincere desire to know and to do 
the will of God. And let the caviler show, first of 
all, how the creation of an intelligent and morally 
accountable being, whether angel or man, is possible, 
without endowing him with the power of choice be- 
tween good and evil. 

Let us, dear hearers, the rather turn our prayerful 
attention to those sad and appalling facts, which the 
Word of God reveals to us, and whose frightful 
consequences everywhere stare us in the face, in the 
history of our sin-burdened and sin-cursed race. 

"In the midst of" that primeval Paradise, the 
ancestral home of mankind, stood "the tree of life," 
and near by "the tree of the knowledge of good and 
evil." Concerning this last tree Jehovah had issued 
the inexorable decree, "Thou shalt not eat of it: 
for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt 
surely die" (Gen. II 117). And thus God had put 
the first pair immediately under the binding power, 
and had thrown around them, the protecting aegis, 
of a most positive and solemn moral enactment. 
Other laws were given, as we have seen, in relation 



The Fall of Man 277 

to marriage, the weekly day of rest, and so on: but 
this was the only interdictory, prohibitory command 
given to the human family. Everything else was 
theirs, theirs to gratify their tastes, to use, and to 
enjoy; everything save only the fruit of this one 
tree; that they must leave uneaten, untouched. 

How the blind dupes of Satan have sneered at all 
this; how ready the vicious and profane still are to 
ridicule this simple command of Jehovah. But in 
so doing they but advertise their own ignorance and 
moral baseness. 

Ushered as Adam and Eve at once were into a 
world of abundance, where everything was placed 
at their beck, might not God set a bound, in this 
one particular, to their otherwise absolute domin- 
ion? Surely all the malign and fiendish ingenuity 
of infidels and scoffers never will be able to prove 
that this was aught else than a most wise and 
beneficent enactment. 

This command was God-like in its simplicity, and 
for that very reason eminently suited to the inex- 
perience of the first pair. The thing interdicted 
was something that stood forth in the open light of 
day ; and if they laid their hands upon it, they would 
sin, as it were, in the sight of earth and heaven. It 
served too as a constant reminder of Him, to Whom 
they owed life itself, and from Whose bountiful 



278 The Humanity of the Christ 

hand came every blessing which they enjoyed. And 
was not this the best possible safeguard, to secure 
their continuance in the way of obedience? What 
could better have served to constantly remind them 
of their obligation to serve, worship, and adore the 
sovereign Ruler of heaven and earth? 

Of course we have all along taken for granted 
that the sacred writer, guided by the unerring Spirit 
of God, is narrating real historical facts, and not 
mere myths or allegorical fancies. And this Biblical 
account of the trial and fall of our first parents 
is either veritable history, or else the whole account 
of the creation of man, and of the divine origin of 
our race, is but a fable, and the whole Bible little 
more than an idle and a worthless tale, good enough 
to indulge the speculative fancy of philosophical 
dreamers, but altogether powerless to speak with 
divine and commanding authority to the human con- 
science, to restore "the soul," and make "wise the 
simple" (Ps. XIX 17). 

No, my brethren, this modern elective process will 
not answer ! The militant Church of God, nay, our 
fallen humanity, needs a whole Bible; not a frag- 
mentary scroll, placed at the mercy of a vain and 
godless philosophy, and of a boastful, but falsely 
so-called science! As said the late Rev. George 
W. Bethune, D.D., "If part be allegory, the whole 



The Fall of Man 279 

is allegory; the account of creation is allegory, man' 
is but an allegorical being, and all human beings, 
you and I and the rest of our race, are mere figments 
of a poetical description." 11 

The all-wise God put man's loyalty and fealty 
to the test; the trial was made under circumstances 
the most favorable; man was tempted by Satan, 
yielded in an evil hour, and fell from his high estate, 
and "hence our nature has become so corrupt, that 
we are all conceived and born in sin." 12 

Of the temptation itself, and of the means which 
the great adversary employed, and whereby he suc- 
ceeded, alas! in deceiving the mother of us all, we 
should like to speak at length, did not the wide 
scope of the present subject forbid it, lest we alto- 
gether weary your patience. 

A few words must suffice, and we pass on. Let 
it be remarked, first of all, that there is nothing in- 
congruous, or irrational, in this whole transaction, 
as reported by Moses. On the contrary, every word 
proves the primeval innocence of the first pair, and 
the consummate skill of Satan, which at last enabled 
him to compass their ruin. Eve at first defends the 
goodness of God. She did not, like too many of 

11 Expository Lectures on the Heidelberg Catechism, 
Vol. I, p. 66. 

12 Heidelberg Catechism, Answer to Question 7. 



280 The Humanity of the Christ 

her descendants, court temptation; yet, alas, she 
stopped to parley with the tempter, and that proved 
her ruin! 

That the archfiend should have used a serpent — 
the very creature too that was best adapted to ac- 
complish his diabolical purpose — in order to be- 
guile the mother of us all, is not a whit more incred- 
ible than that the Angel of Jehovah employed the 
dumb ass to rebuke the prophet Balaam. And cer- 
tainly Holy Writ does not leave us in doubt as to 
the direct agency of the chief of the fallen angels 
in this matter, for, in John VIII 144, our Lord speaks 
of him as having been "a murderer from the begin- 
ning, and" one who "standeth not in the truth, be- 
cause there is no truth in him. ... A liar, and the 
father thereof." And in Revelation XII 19 "the 
great dragon ... is called the Devil and Satan, 
the deceiver of the whole world," and is expressly 
styled "the old serpent." If any one innocently 
imagines that that fallen angel wasn't bad enough 
deliberately to plot the ruin of the innocent pair, 
then we simply want to ask this one question, What 
of these men and women, veritable imps of Satan, 
who are found in almost every community, and 
whose main object in life seems to be to damn the 
souls of their fellow-men? 

But again, the adversary approached Eve through 



The Fall of Man 281 

the only channel by means of which he could invade 
the citadel of her soul. As creatures come from 
God she and her husband had not only been en- 
dowed with knowledge, as we have already seen, 
but, as rational intelligences, they were destined to 
grow in knowledge; their minds and hearts were to 
expand, and to go on expanding eternally. Well, 
said the serpent, here is a tree — the very name that 
God has given it proves it — that will make you and 
Adam wondrously wise. It has given me, until now 
a dumb brute, the speech and intelligence of man; 
eat of it, and "your eyes shall be opened, and ye 
shall be as God, knowing good and evil. And when 
the woman saw," or rather, imagined that she saw, 
"that the tree was good for food, and that it was a 
delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be 
desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit 
thereof, and did eat; and she gave also unto her 
husband with her, and he did eat" (Gen. 111:5-6). 
Of this whole account of the temptation and fall 
we unhesitatingly affirm, that it bears upon its very 
face every mark of historic accuracy and truthful- 
ness, and that a more wonderfully concise, and yet 
clear and simple statement of facts that actually 
took place, cannot be found in the writings of men. 

What happened that day and hour 
When man by disobedience fell? 



282 The Humanity of the Christ 

Says a holy apostle, "The serpent beguiled Eve 
in his craftiness" (II. Cor. XI 13). And Adam 
took from her hand, and, following his wife's de- 
plorable example, he also ate of the forbidden fruit, 
as says Bickersteth, in his devout epic, entitled Yes- 
terday, To-Day and For Ever, — 

"Not circumscribed by the serpent's fraud, 
But blindly overcome by human love, 
Love's semblance, which belied its name, denying 
The Great Creator for the creature's sake." 13 

What did they do? They turned their backs upon 
the Author of their being, the bountiful Giver of 
every comfort and blessing which they enjoyed; in 
a word, they rebelled against His righteous and 
universal sway, and trampled on His "command- 
ment," which was "holy, and righteous, and good" 
(Rom. VII :i2). 

What has been the result ? To answer that ques- 
tion fully one would need to be able to marshal 
before us the story of the race from that very hour 
until now, with all its dread array of acts of wan- 
ton disobedience and open transgression; of conse- 
quent shame, sorrow, and remorse ; of foulest fraud, 
cruelty, and oppression, and of crimes of deepest 
dye. Nay, one would need to look with the eye of 

18 Book 5, lines 527-530. 



The Fall of Man 283 

omniscience into limitless futurity, to understand the 
tremendous and appalling import of the inspired af- 
firmation, that "sin entered into the world, and 
death through sin." 

But what of the dread sentence, "For in the day 
that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die" ? Ah ! 
its execution did not have to wait upon the hour 
when "they heard the Voice of Jehovah God, walk- 
ing in the garden in the cool of the day," coming 
to pronounce their doom, and to send them forth 
beyond the gates of bliss. No sooner had they eaten 
of the forbidden fruit, but "the eyes of them both 
were opened, and they knew that they were naked" 
(Gen. 111:7, 8). Conscience, God's vicegerent in 
the breast of all His intelligent creatures, at once 
asserted itself, and Adam and Eve stood condemned 
at its bar. The death spiritual had already be- 
numbed their guilty souls, and the seeds of physical 
death had now also been sown; nor less certainly 
would the death eternal of soul and body in hell 
have been their everlasting portion, and that of all 
their descendants to the remotest generation, had 
not the infinite wisdom and mercy of God devised 
and carried out a wondrous plan of redemption. 

To the query as to who are directly involved in 
the sin and fall of our first parents, the text makes 
the definite answer. "And so death passed unto all 



284 The Humanity of the Christ 

men, for that all sinned" ; or, as the margin of our 
old English Bible renders the last clause, in full 
accord with the best of ancient and modern Con- 
tinental European versions, "In whom all have 
sinned," i. e., "death passed upon all men through 
him in whom all have sinned." 14 

The representative character of our Lord Jesus 
Christ is gladly acknowledged by the devout be- 
liever. Every one who comes to God by Him, and 
finds pardon and peace in believing, rejoices in the 
blessed assurance that Christ represented him when 
He suffered upon the accursed tree. Well, our 
Lord, the great Head of the Church of God, is ex- 
pressly termed "The second Man," "The last 
Adam" (I. Cor. XV 147, 45). Christ is the federal 
Head, the official Representative of the redeemed 
of all ages, and because He lives they shall live 
also. "They that received the abundance of grace, 
and of the gift of righteousness," shall "reign in 
life through the one, even Jesus Christ" (Rom. 

V:i7). 

Jehovah's plan of redeeming love provided sim- 
ply and alone for the trial of one, not of many, in 
and through whom should be made the sublime at- 
tempt to rescue fallen man. Our blessed Redeemer, 

14 Rev. Willis Lord's Tract, The Federal Character of 
Adam, p. 9. 



The Fall of Man 285 

the God-Man, stood the test! He endured unto 
the end, and brought in everlasting righteousness. 
That ensures the eternal safety and happiness of all 
who come unto God by Him. 

Even so was it with "the first man Adam." The 
race was to stand or fall in him, its federal head. 
Notice the emphasis which the Scriptures of truth 
place upon the one offence of the one man Adam. 
"Through one man sin entered into the world, and 
death through sin. ... By the trespass of the one 
the many died. . . . The judgment came of one 
unto condemnation. ... By the trespass of the 
one," i. e., by the one offence of the one man, "death 
reigned through the one. . . . Through one tres- 
pass the judgment came unto all men to condemna- 
tion. . . . Through the one man's disobedience the 
many were made sinners" (Rom. V:i2, 15, 16, 17, 
18, 19). Can language possibly be more emphatic? 
It is the one offence of the one man that has 

"Brought death into the world and all our woe." 

And when we consider all the favoring circum- 
stances, under which the trial of man's fealty was 
made, have we not reason to bless God for having, 
in His all-wise providence, suffered the trial to be 
speedily made? Where could have been found a 
better place for man than Paradise? When a time 



286 The Humanity of the Christ 

for him more favorable, in which to withstand 
Satan's wiles, than while still so fully conscious of 
the wonderful beneficence of his Creator God? 

And who will presume to say, that had he been 
in Adam or Eve's place, he would not have fallen? 
Have we not all of us stumbled and fallen times 
without number? Aye, the history of our race 
from that day on proves to a demonstration, that not 
a single mere man has ever lived upon this globe, 
but what, had he been in Adam's place, he would 
have fallen, even as he fell. 

And to "the fall and disobedience of our first pa- 
rents, Adam and Eve, in Paradise," it is, alas! so 
perfectly easy to trace the moral and spiritual cor- 
ruption of our nature, for, as in the case of Seth, 
we are all begotten in the "likeness" and "after" the 
"image" of our great forefather Adam (Gen. V:3). 

We do all of us, beloved hearers, verily belong 
by nature to a fallen race. Well may we confess 
with the fathers of the Reformation, 15 "Man . . . 
being in honor, he understood it not, neither knew 
his excellency, but wilfully subjected himself to 
sin, and consequently to death and the curse, giving 
ear to the words of the Devil. . . . And being thus 
become wicked, perverse, and corrupt in all his 
ways, he hath lost all his excellent gifts, which he 

18 Belgic Confession, Art. 14. 



The Fall of Man 287 

had received from God, and only retained a few 
remains thereof, which, however, are sufficient to 
leave man without excuse . . . All the light which 
is in us is changed into darkness, as the Scriptures 
teach us, saying, "The light shineth in the darkness, 
and the darkness comprehended it not" (John 1:5), 
where St. John calleth men darkness. Therefore 
we reject all that is taught repugnant to this, con- 
cerning the free will of man, since man is but a 
slave to sin; and has nothing of himself, unless it 
is given him from heaven. For who may presume 
to boast, that he of himself can do any good, since 
Christ saith, "No man can come to Me, except the 
Father, that sent Me, draw him"? (Jbhn VI:44). 
Who will glory in his own will, who understands 
that "the mind of the flesh is enmity against God"? 
(Rom. VIII 17). Who can speak of his knowledge, 
since "the natural man receiveth not the things of 
the Spirit of God"? (I. Cor. II 114). In short, 
who dare suggest any thoughts, since he knows that 
we are not sufficient of ourselves to think anything 
as of ourselves, but that our sufficiency is of God? 
And therefore what the apostle saith ought justly 
to be held sure and firm, that "it is God Who 
worketh in us both to will and to work, for His 
good pleasure" (Phil. II :i3). For there is no will 
nor understanding, conformable to the Divine will 



288 The Humanity of the Christ 

and understanding, but what Christ hath wrought 
in man ; which He teaches us when He saith, "Apart 
from Me ye can do nothing" (John XV :5). 

Sin, my hearers, is an actual, a dreadful fact in 
the history of our race, and in the life of every indi- 
vidual soul. "For all have sinned, and fall short 
of the glory of God" (Rom. 111:23). Says that 
eminent English Puritan, Thomas Manton, "Our 
sin is charged upon us collectively in common: we 
have all gone astray. Distributively : every one to 
his own way. We all agree in turning aside from 
the right way of pleasing and enjoying . . . God; 
and we disagree, as each one hath a by-path of his 
own, some running after this lust, some after that, 
and so are not only divided from God, but divided 
from one another, while every one maketh his will 
his law." 

Men may. rave at all this; they may utter their 
flippant sneers at the idea that Adam and Eve, for 
so trifling an offence, as they ignorantly and reck- 
lessly presume to call it, should be turned out of 
Paradise. They may, in their folly and moral mad- 
ness, make a mock at sin, and even presume to 
charge the Most High with folly, and try to hold 
their Maker responsible for their wickedness, saying, 
like some of old, who complained that "The fathers 
have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are 



The Fall of Man 289 



set on edge" (Eze. XVIII 12), "We can't help our- 
selves; its our temperament; we are just what God 
made us," and then rush blindly and madly on in 
the service of the world, the flesh, and the Devil: 
but we solemnly warn you, beloved hearer, if you 
have ever cherished such like thoughts, to remember 
the apostle's indignant remonstrance, "Let God be 
found true, but every man a liar" (Rom. 111:4). 

As for this phrenological humbuggery of hunting 
for the bumps in a man's head, and that not for the 
purpose of revealing to himself his besetting sins, 
that he may flee to God for mercy, and for grace 
to help him in every time of need: but in order to 
palliate his wickedness, to console him in the midst 
of his moral pollution, and to stifle the voice of con- 
science; it is, from first to last, a veritable Devil's 
trap to catch souls, that he may the more readily 
drag them down to bottomless perdition ! 

No! sin is not of God, but of the Devil, and of 
human depravity, instigated and allured by the evil 
one. Hence the words of "the Preacher," "Behold, 
this only have I found; that God made man up- 
right; but they have sought out many inventions" 
(Eccle. VII :2g). And the apostle James writes, 
"Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted 
of God; for God cannot be tempted with evil, and 
He Himself tempteth no man; but each man is 



290 The Humanity of the Christ 

tempted, when he is drawn away by his own lust, 
and enticed. Then the lust, when it hath conceived, 
beareth sin; and the sin, when it is fullgrown, 
bringeth forth death." Again, speaking of that 
wondrous gift of God, the power of human speech, 
and of the oft frightful perversion of so great a 
blessing, he exclaims, "And the tongue is a fire: 
the world of iniquity among our members is the 
tongue, which defileth the whole body, and setteth 
on fire the wheel of nature; and is set on fire by 
hell!" (James 1:13-15; HI:6). 

But though our race is in such a deplorable and 
frightful plight, and though the earth itself was 
cursed for man's sake, and has ever since proved a 
vale of tears, and to vast multitudes the scene of 
unutterable anguish and despair; yet, blessed be 
God! His holy Word speaks to us of a Paradise 
Regained. 

Said the dying Christ to the penitent on the cross, 
"Verily I say unto thee, To-day shalt thou be with 
Me in Paradise" (Luke XXIII .-43). Ere yet our 
first parents were sent forth from the garden of 
Eden, as we have seen, Jehovah proclaimed the 
protevangelium, viz., that the seed of the woman 
should bruise the serpent's head. And our blessed 
Redeemer has "become the Surety of a better cove- 
nant" (Heb. VII :22). 



The Fall of Man 291 

"In Him the sons of Adam boast 
More blessings than their father lost." 

Regenerated by the Spirit of God man can and 
does rise again toward heaven and toward God. 

This matter of the origin of evil furnishes a prob- 
lem that man will never be able to wholly solve 
in this life. Why a holy God permitted sin to enter 
our fair world, and rob it of its glory; or why He 
has tolerated it anywhere, who can fully explain ? 

"Canst thou by searching find out God? 
Canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfec- 
tion?" (Job XI 17.) 

"How unsearchable are His judgments, and His 
ways past tracing out!" 

(Rom. XI : 3 3.) 

But this much we do know, "To this end was 
the Son of God manifested, that He might destroy 
the works of the Devil" (I. John 111:8). Out of 
all this wreck and ruin that sin has produced, He 
will yet bring forth glory eternal to the Triune 
Jehovah, and endless joy and blessedness to untold 
millions that have been, and who are yet to be, 
saved from among the children of men. 

Nay more ; for by reason of this wondrous scheme 
of redeeming love, for which there had been no 



292 The Humanity of the Christ 

occasion had not man fallen, the amazing long-suf- 
fering, compassion, and boundless love of God, have 
been displayed before all the universe of being, and 
in all coming ages Jehovah will show forth, before 
the principalities and powers in the heavenly places, 
"the exceeding riches of His grace, in kindness 
toward us in Christ Jesus" (Eph. 11:7). And thus 
will the melting story of Calvary serve to bind both 
angels and men in everlasting loyalty, love, and 
adoration to that marvelous Being of beings, Whose 
very name is Love. 

Nor is even this all. As God did not abandon 
man hopelessly to the dominion of Satan, neither 
will He suffer the archfiend to retain his grasp upon 
this globe, the scene of these millenniums of fierce 
contention between heaven and hell for the pos- 
session of the castle of Mansoul; but He will re- 
deem it gloriously! As the poet has sung, so we 
need but wait, 

"Till one greater Man 
Restore us, and regain the blissful seat," 

and then, as Jehovah Himself so solemnly protested 
to His servant Moses, "all the earth shall be filled 
with His glory" (Num. XIV :2i). 

Let us briefly turn to "the word of prophecy" 
(II. Pet. I:i9). 



The Fall of Man 293 

"Thou, Lord, in the beginning didst lay the founda- 
tion of the earth; 
And the heavens are the works of Thy hands: 
They shall perish; but Thou continuest: 
And they all shall wax old as doth a garment; 
And as a mantle shalt Thou roll them up, 
As a garment, and they shall be changed." 

(Heb. I. 10-12.) 

"Looking for and earnestly desiring the coming 
of the day of God, by reason of which the heavens," 
i. e., the circumambient atmosphere, not surely the 
vast sidereal universe, "being on fire shall be dis- 
solved, and the elements shall melt with fervent 
heat. But, according to His promise, we look for 
new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth 
righteousness" (II. Pet. Ill 112-13). 

"Ask of Me, and I will give Thee the nations for 
Thine inheritance, 

And the uttermost parts of the earth for Thy pos- 
session. 

Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; 

Thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's ves- 
sel." (Ps. 11:8-9.) 

"And there was given Him," i. e., the "Son of 
Man," "dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that 
all the peoples, nations, and languages should serve 
Him: His dominion is an everlasting dominion, 



294 The Humanity of the Christ 

which shall not pass away, and His kingdom that 
which shall not be destroyed" (Dan. VII :i3, 14). 
"For the earnest expectation of the creation," i. e., 
of this whole lower creation, animate and inanimate, 
"waiteth for the revealing of the sons of God, . . . 
waiting for our adoption, to wit, the redemption of 
our body" (Rom. VIII :igr, 23). "And I saw a new 
heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and 
the first earth are passed away; and the sea is no 
more. And I saw the holy city, new Jeru- 
salem," the abode of the triumphant hosts of God's 
elect, "coming down out of heaven from God, made 
ready as a bride adorned for her husband" (Rev. 
XXI: 1 -2). "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Ye 
shall see the heaven opened, and the angels of God 
ascending and descending upon the Son of Man" 
(John I:5i). "And He that sitteth on the throne 
said, Behold, I make all things new" (Rev. XXI: 

5). 

Could language declare more emphatically that 
man's personal salvation is not only to be complete, 
but also that his erstwhile lost Paradise shall yet be 
gloriously restored? Says Scotland's great preacher, 
Thomas Chalmers, "Though a Paradise of sense, it 
will not be a Paradise of sensuality. ... It is not 
the entire substitution of spirit for matter that will 
distinguish the future economy from the present. 



The Fall of Man 295 

But it will be the entire substitution of righteous- 
ness for sin. . . . There will be a firm earth, as 
we have at present, and a heaven stretched over it, 
as we have at present, and it is not by the absence 
of these, but by the absence of sin, that the abodes 
of immortality will be characterized." 16 

Well may we cry out with the beloved disciple, in 
answer to the Master's blessed assurance, "Yea: I 
come quickly. Amen: come, Lord Jesus!" (Rev. 
XXII :2o). Oh! let us pray and labor for the 
"return 

Of Him, . . . 

The woman's Seed, . . . 

Last, in the clouds, from heaven to be revealed, 

In glory of the Father, to dissolve 

Satan with his perverted world; then raise 

From the conflagrant mass, purged and refined, 

New heavens, new earth, ages of endless date, 

Founded in righteousness, and peace, and love; 

To bring forth fruits, joy, and eternal bliss." 17 

Dear hearer, how many times have you been 
born? By natural descent, and also, alas! by the 
actual consent of your own will, and by your every 
sinful thought and act, you are a child of the first 
Adam, an outcast from Paradise, and an heir of 
wrath. Have you been born a second time? Are 

"Sermon on II. Pet. III:i3. 

" Paradise Lost, Book XII, lines 541-551. 



296 The Humanity of the Christ 

you a new creature in Christ Jesus? regenerated by 
the Holy Spirit? Have you exercised repentance 
toward God, and have you been joined to Christ 
by a living faith? Has He, "The last Adam," given 
you personally a title to the new heavenly Paradise? 
Are you sealed by the Spirit of the living God until 
the day of the redemption of our bodies (Eph. IV: 
30; Rom. VIII 123), that you may then also go in 
unto "the marriage supper of the Lamb"? (Rev. 
XIX :g). 

As a child of Adam you are exposed to everlast- 
ing woe. Are you then also a child of God in 
Christ Jesus, saved by His blood, and sanctified by 
His Spirit, "made meet to be" a partaker "of the 
inheritance of the saints in light"? (Col. 1: 12). 
Oh! how many times have you been born? Only 
once, or twice? Remember, we beseech you, this 
word of Scripture, "As many as received Him, to 
them gave He the right," the authority, "to become 
children of God, even to them that believe on His 
name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the 
will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of 
God" (John 1:12-13). 



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